Barbara Manning

Re' Burton wrote:Paul, I love the card!  ...What, why, how, when.  Maybe that only makes sense to me.  I'd like the card to be able to stand alone, so if the reader has no knowledge of what a "rocket" is, maybe add rocket stove/heater/chamber or describe it or show sticks going into the fire box, or something?  Very cool idea and graphics though!  ... Thanks!  

I'd like to see more information on the car too but the type can't be so small that it can't be read conveniently, so I would ask you to consider bullet points rather than trying to write out full sentences. Thanks!

Christopher Weeks wrote:My experience with chestnuts is that when you sprout them in the fridge over the winter and then plant them in your nursery bed, they're the most bestest favorite squirrel food ever and one squirrel can easily eat 100 in one day. But that's probably not how you should eat them.

Earlier this fall I was gifted with about 500 G of chestnuts. I looked up several different recipes and was intimidated by all of them. The time and attention to detail necessary in order to cook them, not to mention that they're potentially explosive was overwhelming.

So I walked out my front door and stood in the middle of the road and pitched them all into the National Forest right across the street from me. This is in the hopes that more chestnut trees will grow and help block the wind from blowing my house away.

Barbara Manning wrote:

Tereza Okava wrote:
The other thing I always do is take the last one, when it's finally soft and perfectly ripe and could be eaten with a spoon, and throw it in the freezer. On the first hot day, I take it out, let it defrost, and eat it with a spoon, a wonderful, squishy frozen treat from the fall.

Also, you can make sherbet with them.  Peel and freeze them, then put them in a blender or other kind of blitzer.  Add honey or this honey-based spice sauce.  The sauce is also good as a topping for vanilla ice cream. My Greek friend developed this recipe for his baklava, but I've rarely gotten past making the syrup. It's great on pancakes, too.
2 cups honey
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1 teaspoon vanilla
1\4 teaspoon ground cloves
Combine all the ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil (watch it carefully so it doesn't boil over -- it's a hot mess to clean up!) and then simmer for 10 minutes. Strain, or not as you prefer, then cool.  It keeps forever in the 'fridge as long as you use a clean spoon in it, and is a really tasty sauce.  I also freeze blueberries and whiz them with the sauce in a blender for blueberry sherbet. I suspect almost any kind of frozen fruit will work.

ah,forgot to tell you to omit the seeds.  Sorry!

Look to YouTube and Instagram for canning, and drying tips and instructions. I like Becoming a Farm Girl and Rose Red Homesreading for emergency preparedness.

Both women are excellent teachers in there own way. I recently added Nicole kills plants to learn how to make laundry soap, dw soap, and other Hh goods.

I understand that this is not quite permies approved   method of learning, but it provides me with the baseline information I need in order to learn how to water bath can and  pressure can. Good luck

I have recently come across a stainless steel dish cloth made of chainmail. They're fantastic! I used one for about a month when I was staying with my girlfriend's family. They scrub the delicate dishes clean they scrub the pots and pans clean they even scrub the non-stick pans without damaging the coating.

The only draw back is they are expensive, but once you have one you'll have it for life. Shop around to find a size, guage and peuce you can live with.

Very easy to clean. You can even put it in  boiling water if you'd like. It rarely gets dirty and thus it doesn't ever smell of rotten food. More here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+that+stainless+steel+chain+mail+dish+cloth%3F&oq=what+is+that+stainless+steel+chain+mail

Jeff Marchand wrote:I'd take them in a heart beat but  I'm a little far.

Is there something the Permies Community can do to help get them transported?

I'm friend is the owner of a high-end sushi restaurant in NY. In the past year or so, they've had to transition away from those beautifully made hangiri or sushi oke bowls (see images here: https://www.google.com/search?q=wooden+sushi+making+bowls&rlz=

Why? you ask.

Because the NY Dept of Health thinks that after the restaurant has been in business for at least 30 years, that wooden bowl presents a hazard and could potentially harbor ah, . . . well, I don't know what they think but they do have a RULE against it.

I think it's a crying shame and a horrific overreach in terms of what's real and what's unreal. The NY Health department is forcing them to buy plastic hangiri. The purpose of the pine or cedar bowl is to absorb the water from the rice. Cedar or pine is also used extensively in Japanese homes because of its insect repellant properties.

Yeah, I get that it's a soft wood, but it's also not a cutting surface. Short grain rice is cooked with kombu then transferred to the hangiri and seasoned in the bowl with rice vinegar, sugar (mirin most times) and salt.  https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-make-sushi-rice/#recipe  It's classically mixed with a wooden pallet made of  a similar soft wood. What is wrong with this process??? Cedar or pine is also used extensively in Japanese homes because of its insect repellant properties.

A plastic bowl doesn't do any of that.  And, a plastic bowl that sits around in a hot kitchen is more likely to house bacteria than a clean, dry, pine or cedar bowl. Worse, the plastic bowl goes through the dishwasher that uses at least 210F water and a 10 minute hot air dry. Just imagine the amount of microplastics that are released during that process.  

Worse, these health departments are working on state edicts, not national guidelines or (as far as I can see) even state edicts -- some of these "requirements" are local.  This is something new they've come up with that was not an issue 10 years ago, when I worked there. And, let's not even talk about the 147 billion sushi restaurants in Japan that STILL use classic or traditional hangiri without poisoning a soul to date.

I am incensed, but I'm off the soapbox now.  Thanks for letting me rant.

Spun iron vs cast iron

https://farmfetch.co/blogs/news/spun-iron-vs-cast-iron-cookware-buying-guide#:~:text=

Jennie Little wrote:I found the Lodge Skillet currently for sale in my booth at Salvation Army.

I think a lot of people try to use cast iron and either they don't have all the information they need to become successful with using cast iron or they find that the pan or pot itself is just too heavy and weird for them to use successfully. So a lot of cast iron ends up at the second hand stores like the Salvation Army. And many other cases they're just the remnants of grandmother's kitchen that ends up being not suitable for whoever the grandkids are. In any case they almost always end up at the second hand stores. I like the Salvation Army I want to support them and that's actually where I go and look and I found quite a bit of cast iron cookware there.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:We don't have much choice if we want cast iron pans around here. It is Lodge... or the town dump
I go dumpster diving faithfully every week and I found 2 Lodge cast iron pans at the dump. That's the best price of all, isn't it?

I had a lot of success in secondhand stores  like the Salvation Army stores.