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Now We’re Cooking with Jaggery!

“Can I help you sir?” asked the young man at the Indian/Himalayan market.  Big smile, hands wrung together, plastic sandals.  Already I was thinking the answer was probably ‘no’. “Do you have any jaggery?” I asked. Now his smile was

Posted in Baking, Brewing Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Dinnertime Craziness

It all collides at dinner:  low blood-sugar, stimulus overload from a day of school, punchy tiredness, and the impossibility of getting four people at the table at the same time.  Forget the genial family dinner set under the olive trees

Posted in Parenting Tagged with: , , , , ,

Child Labor

There’s a reason kids are used for tasks like this.  Just look at those nimble little fingers!   I was having trouble helping Child Harbat weave using a crochet hook and she found it easier to just use her fingers.

Posted in Parenting Tagged with: , , , , ,

New Bread

It’s time for a new bread, a new way of doing things.  I’ve long resisted switching to folding dough instead of kneading because…why exactly?  Maybe I thought kneading was a necessary primal step in creating bread, something to do with

Posted in Baking Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Beer Review: Honey Rosemary Saison

Another beer brewed, another lesson learned.  Hey kids!  Go easy on the herb, ‘kay?  Even though Crazy Uncle Gary says it’s no problem and he lets you pour coke into your Froot Loops instead of milk, a little fine herb

Posted in Brewing Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Nothing is Too Slimey

I’ve always encouraged Child Harbat to pick up bugs and be not be squeamish or cruel about the smaller creatures of the world.  So I’m pleased that she not only likes to pick up snails but wants them to crawl

Posted in Gardening, Parenting Tagged with: , , , , ,

Bubble, Bubble, Toil, and Guzzle

Home brewing is a hedonist’s dream.  Whatever your taste, your required quantity, your preferred bottle shape, it’s all under your control, o puppetmaster.  But homebrewing is a hell for the impatient.  You think once fermenting is done that you can

Posted in Brewing Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Birth, Life, Death, and a Curtsey

Sometimes you get to see an entire life cycle, to feel as old as a mountain as forests rise and fall at your toes.  At our house this meant watching a pair of red house finches build a nest under

Posted in Events, Parenting Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

The Last of Us – Emotional Gameplay

Let’s talk gaming for a minute.  Video games have come a long way from Donkey Kong and Bard’s Tale.  The game studio Naughty Dog, made famous and wealthy by the wildly successful and acclaimed Uncharted trilogy which is as much

Posted in Products Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Getting More Food on Your Face

Of all the things I have to deal with in parenting–the temper tantrums, dirty diapers, unflushed toilets, runny noses–the thing that irritates me is messy faces.  Child Harbat never had too much of an issue with this and learned to

Posted in Parenting Tagged with: , , , , ,
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