ereuyi's Profile

I prefer the smaller teaspoons and salad forks to the bigger forks and soup spoons, so those get used much more at my house! I'm not a small person, but I guess I've been trained to take small bites.

It depends what I'm buying and where, but I've noticed this enough that I've gotten in the habit of comparing bulk and packaged prices before I scoop.

My grandmother expects whoever's near the phone to answer when it rings at her house, but otherwise never.

I always see cartons of it next to the eggnog at Christmas around here, and my mom used to buy it, so I've always though of it as a Southern eggnog variation. I've never tried to make it, but it sounds like fun!

I'm going to second Little Rock. Local laws are friendly to homesteading (I think chicken laws only state how far your coop has to be from the neighbors); there's a local beekeeping society and plenty of gardeners. There's a great group of folks involved in local food and sustainable living, but the city's small enough that you're not gonna get lost in any crowds. There are several farmer's markets, CSAs, local food buying clubs, and restaurants serving local fare (if not exclusively, at least as a focus). UCA has a project called Conserving Arkansas' Agricultural Heritage that's working on a seed bank of local heirlooms and arranging seed swaps, and the Ozark Folk Center has been a great resource for me as I've gotten into growing and making things. There are a lot of back-to-the-land folks from the '70s still out in the hills, so you sometimes get opportunities to learn from folks who've been at this for decades.

The median household income here is is about $39K, so most people are living under that $50k threshold.

The city has set up a land bank of abandoned/tax delinquent properties that can be bought by just paying off the back taxes. The University of Arkansas architecture school and several development groups are working on some really neat prefab homes and ones made of shipping containers, with loans and other financial help to make them affordable.

The cultural scene here is much more vibrant than most cities of less than 200,000 (a bit over half a million if you count all the suburbs and unincorporated areas), in part because it's the state capital and in part because of the great foundations here.

I recently moved into a freshly-renovated hundred-year-old one-bedroom apartment with a little patch of yard in the back ($550 a month); I've got permission from my my landlord to plant what I want back there (which is pretty common). I'm currently researching what edibles I can grow in shade, since there are several big ol' trees on the lot. He's planning to set up a community gardening area for the tenants in a sunny spot behind another building he owns, but that's not done yet. There are enough vacant lots around that I'm considering doing a little guerilla-style gardening, too.

Our frost-free season averages from late March to early November, and with a little bit of season-extending and wise veggie choices you can grow year-round. Our winters are mild enough for a lot of semi-tropical plants (figs and pomegrantes, depending on variety, and bay laurel and tea as well as a native passionfruit species), but truly tropical plants will need to come inside or into a greenhouse. River cane is native here, and bamboo loves the climate so much as to become almost a weed, so you never have to look hard for staking/trellising materials.

The Bookstar in Memphis was another theater-turned-bookstore, but it closed last year. Not sure what's in the space now or if it's empty.

I'm a huge fan of Eucalan (I'm sensitive to a lot of fragrances, and theirs are from essential oils), which you don't have to rinse.

If you have trouble with dye running, a bit of vinegar in the wash will usually take care of it.

To get the worst of the water out of things I've hand washed, I put them in the washing machine and run only the spin cycle.

My grandmama does this with her sweet tea, and it ALWAYS tastes like coffee. Even after being sweetened and chilled.

I just keep a stovetop kettle with a teapot to steep tea in and a pour over cone for single cups of coffee.

As others have said, I often sub it for bacon in Southern recipes like black-eyed peas or braised greens. That's assuming it's been cured; I'm not sure fresh would work for that.

The couple who bought Comstock, Ferre and co., also run Baker Creek Heirloom seeds in Missouri. I've been getting seeds from them for the past few years, and the catalog is always a fun read. Do you know if they're doing a separate one for Comstock, or will it be the same as the Baker Creek?