Ned Harr

I think learning to cook is really about learning to taste.

Edit: Not sure who I'm really writing to here, but I changed my mind. I decided learning to taste is how you become a GOOD cook. Just cooking can be done without taste at all, you just follow recipes.

My advice for learning actually isn't to go right to a cookbook, it's to start with something extremely easy and simple, like ramen noodles. This is what I did when I was a kid, and I'd say it's how I learned.

First you follow the instructions on the package. Then next time (or maybe that very first time if you're brave) you experiment by adding a new ingredient you think would go well in it.  As you do it more and more, you try other ingredients, and try adding them at different times, and see how different things combine.

This is where learning to taste happens. How did the two ingredients go together? How did the flavors differ if you cooked them for longer or shorter amounts of time? Etc.

When you eat food other people cooked, try to identify the different flavors. If you taste something you like and can't identify, ask what it is. (You can even do this in restaurants, if you sense you have a good rapport with the staff!) See if later at the store you can find some of that ingredient, and taste it so you learn its flavor. Start experimenting with that, seeing how it affects things you make.

Then (this is also how I did it) as you go you also start to collect little tricks, you develop knife skills, you learn to make a roux, to deglaze, to save and reintroduce drippings, and so on. I never used cookbooks for this, but I did use cooking shows and a few cooking Youtube channels. Chef John's "Food Wishes" is my favorite, I recommend that.

Replying so I can find this later, I am intrigued.

If I could add some specificity here, I'd say there's something critically important about using technology intentionally vs. taking it for granted (which usually ends up as being totally unquestioningly reliant on it).

In fact I am developing a theory which states that intentionality is key to what distinguishes "technology" from "nature" in the first place.

What I like about this theory is it also helps distinguish technology from nature in animal contexts--e.g. chimps fishing for ants using sticks, dolphins using bubbles to trap fish, birds dropping clams onto rocks to open them.

We think of chimps & sticks, dolphins & bubbles, and birds & clams & rocks as part of nature, but when intention--choice--enters the picture you get simple technological systems! If it works in those contexts then I know it works in ours.

Choices are driven by preferences, and preferences are driven by values, so for the purposes of this thread we can think about how the values of permaculture inform our preferences and then how those might be expressed as choices. It's this process of making the choice to use or not use a given tool that is important, more than whether that tool ends up getting used or not used.

Two people can use the same gardening app but if person A does it because he always uses apps for everything and it would never have occurred to him not to, while person B does it because she stopped and thought about her options first and decided using the app still would be a valid expression of her permaculturalist values while fulfilling her goals, then person B is using technology in a permaculturalist way, while (I would argue) person A is not.

Josh Warfield wrote:I've been living for nearly a decade in a van (Ford Transit) which I built out myself. The main reason I would never want to live in a commercially manufactured RV is that much of the interior tends to be made with oddly specific custom components. The sink drain isn't just a regular sink drain, it's a special RV sink drain. Likewise for the breaker box, and the propane connections, and the door hinges and handles. If anything ever breaks, you probably can't just go to the nearest Ace Hardware or Home Depot and get a one-for-one replacement. You need to find a special RV parts store, and even then there's a good chance that they'll have to order the part and you'll need to wait for it to ship. And it will likely cost twice what the equivalent thing would cost that isn't the "RV version" of the thing. I strongly prefer my house to be built with components that are as easily replaceable as possible.

I had a suspicion this was a primary driver of why the "good advice" out there is to not buy one. Building out the interior of an empty van on the other hand, sounds more up my alley.

I think a Transit is an interesting choice for a build-out, given the lack of 4WD options (if I'm remembering right) and Ford's notorious mechanical and electrical issues (at least in my experience & observation--I drive a Transit Connect for my work van) though I do consistently like the ergonomics on Fords if you exclude the area under the hood. I'm sure some people get lucky with Fords. Curious how you've fared with the Transit and what are your thoughts about the other van options.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Providing a place for other people to park their RV's (at a daily/monthly fee) is quite possibly a better investment than actually owning one. My 2c.

To me that sounds like a decent Plan C, but not what I'd want in a Plan A or B. Being a landlord is a job, and in addition to managing the direct impact of "tenants" or "guests" you also have to manage the potential strain this puts on relationships with existing neighbors. In general, renting space to others, unless the land was already being used that way, is something I'd consider only after I'd already been living full-time there, i.e. after my own RV/camper is already no longer my temporary home and is either gone or back to being a vacationing tool.

Indeed, good comments. I meant to specify in the OP that, for hypothetical purposes, let's assume wood framing.

Some natural building techniques have other drawbacks unrelated to performance. For example I think adobe is really cool, it's amazing actually, but an adobe wall has to be something like 18" thick for every 10 or 12 feet of height. (I might have the exact numbers wrong but that's in the ballpark.) That is pretty limiting if you want multi levels, and it really eats into the liveable floorspace of your footprint.

Building science question, and of course I'm interested in how this applies to materials and methods that fall under the "natural building" umbrella, though I'm also curious about how you'd approach this in conventional construction.

I feel like fire and pest resistance don't get talked about much as much as other aspects of house construction, leaving me with some knowledge gaps. This thread will hopefully fill some of those gaps.

Let's start with the theoretical "perfect wall"--see the diagram below. Ideally every exterior wall, and the roof too, would be formed like this.

Where do fire resistance (both from fires outside and fires inside) and pest (wood-destroying insects in particular) fit into the perfect wall? What sorts of products, treatments would be used, and if it isn't obvious, how do they work?

PS. In the US at least, modern houses with attached garages are required to have drywall on all garage walls and ceilings, ostensibly for the aim of fire prevention. I'm not sure, but some OSB sheathing products might be required to have a fire retardant treatment as well. (Fire-treated OSB is definitely required in some commercial construction applications.) But I don't want to put drywall or OSB in my house, so what are alternatives?

PPS. In Australia, aren't all the exterior-wall structural members of houses commonly treated for termites? And if they are, how are they treated? In any case, such treatment is not common in the US. Should it be?

Definitions are both personal (what do words and concepts mean to you, how did that meaning evolve in your mind as a result of your own unique life experiences) and universal (what do words and concepts mean in a way common to everyone, to facilitate communication and shared understanding).

We have some control over personal definitions, much less over universal ones, though sometimes with cleverness and a bit of luck we can put new words or new applications of existing words into wide circulation (after all, every word we use was once used for the first time by someone) and of course when it comes to other people we have outsize influence over those who live with and/or look up to us, such as our children.

Therefore I believe everyone is capable of updating their own definition of wealth/prosperity, as I’m sure many users of this website have, in ways that are less about money and more about fulfillment and being surrounded by harmoniousness.

But I am less sure about changing that definition broadly, because then even if all of “us” tried to coordinate the circulation of a new definition for wealth/prosperity, it would still be an uphill battle against a far larger and more widespread competing force that wants to definite it purely according to Having Stuff.

And frankly, I think Having Stuff appeals in a more direct way to the human brainstem, which evolved in an African Savannah where scarcity and deprivation were everyday reality, and making sure you took every opportunity to Get Stuff was simply a matter of survival. Many people (especially Americans) still live in that survival mode, paycheck to paycheck, everything on credit, tangibles valued far above intangibles, self-worth measured against the Joneses, etc.

And maybe it has to be this way (a dark thought I’ve expressed here before); without the consumerism and waste and rat-racing of the majority, this Goldilocks ideal “we” experience, in which we can both not run in the rat race yet still feel wealthy/prosperous, might not be possible at all. Can’t salvage stuff from the side of the road if nobody has thrown it away, ya know?

So I applaud the manipulation of one’s own definition of wealth/prosperity toward something healthier, more holistic, more humane, and it’d probably be nice if more people did in some absolute sense, but I am pessimistic that a definition of it could be changed much more broadly, and I have a slight nagging impish sense that maybe even it shouldn’t.

Make sure all your doorknobs are the round kind (opposable thumbs required), not the handle kind!