I’m standing at the kitchen sink, trying to rinse cake frosting from my freshly washed hair, when I realize I have a choice. It all started with Bob’s birthday two days ago. “I don’t want ANYTHING,” he told me a few days earlier. His birthday feels like the first true spring day we’ve had this […]
Archives for April 2020
Baling Twine Economics
You can do a lot with baling twine. It binds the hay together, for certain. We’ve also used it for door latches, knife sheaths, belts, halters, hinges, jury-rigged tailgates, tie downs and cooler handles. The artful employment of baling twine is about more than the ingenuity of a small farmer. It’s about their psyche; the […]
Survivors’ Guilt
It takes me a second to realize it’s an eagle and a muskrat. And that I’m witnessing something profoundly beautiful. And terrible. And therefore, awesome, in the truest sense of the word. They’re in Clapper’s hayfield, the one on the way to the cafe from the farm cleaved by the meandering stream. I remember that […]
Lessons from the Not-So-Happy Homemakers
I received a letter from a reader, Landon, last week that’s prompting this week’s post: He writes: I read your blog post about Coronavirus and saw how every choice you made focused on your community, and then saw how every tier of your Patreon included some kind of giving to the community. Why do you […]
Episode 12: When, Where & How
Mise-en-place. It’s French for put in place. And it’s the Golden Rule for running a restaurant. It defines when things happen, how they happen, and precisely where. At 4 am Saturday morning, I turn on the proofing ovens. At 4:01 I lay the croissants out on trays. At 4:07 I put water on to boil. […]