It’s been over 90 degrees the past few days. Last night, after leaving the convention center, I had dinner at The Chop Shop, right near the High Line (on 10th Ave/25th St.), excellent sort of Asian fusion food, caught a cab cross-town to the 34th street East River Ferry, a surprisingly fast (and funky) ferry; the skipper was a cowboy, he’d roar into each dock, then reverse the props, and gently bump up to the landing gangplank.
It was cool out on the river, a novel way to get to Brooklyn. I walked through Williamsburg to FADA, a French bistro and listened to 2 sets by the Baby Soda Jazz Band as they went through ’20s-’30s songs like Darktown Strutters Ball, Marie, I’ll See You in My Dreams, and the like. This is a great little band. The entire street wall of the place was open to the street and people walking by would either start dancing, or otherwise move to the music.
In spite of the fact that Williamsburg has been “discovered,” I like it a lot. Great place to wander and explore. I’m told that Bushwick is now what Williamsburg was 10 years ago.
Places to eat, espresso, music, art, theater, bookstores, buildings, adventures?
The Maker Faire was just great. I’d never think that something so nerd-oriented would appeal to me, but there was soul in addition to all the robots and tech wizardry. We had a booth in the “Homegrown Village” section and sold more books than we have at any event ever. The booth, designed by Lew Lewandowski and manned by Lew and my son Evan, was mobbed the entire 2 days, most of the interest being in our Tiny Homes book.
My talks on “The Half-Acre Homestead” went well; maybe 125 kindred spirits in the audience each day.
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Tags: bikes, books, children, cooking, design, food, homesteading, tiny homes, tiny houses, tools, vehicles 
Two years ago I did a “1/4 acre homestead” talk at the Maker Faire at the San Mateo County (Calif.) Event Center). This time around, I have a lot more material, plus URLs on all the tools I’m going to show. I’ll be doing a presentation on the Maker Faire Stage, at 2 PM on Saturday, May 18th, and at 2 PM Sunday, May 19th. Information on the Faire: https://makerfaire.com/. Reviews of the Faire: https://www.yelp.com/biz/maker-faire-san-mateo.
I’ll be showing slides of our homestead, and the various tools we use around here in the kitchen, garden, and shop — from 40+ years’ experience. I’ve picked the tools I think are unique and maybe not so well known, and left off all the ones that I think people may already know about. We’ve posted the URLs on our website here: https://www.shelterpub.com/_homestead/tools.html and I’ll be passing out cards with a QR code so people in the audience so they can check out any of these tools when they get home. I’ll also have copies of our Tiny Homes mini book (2″ x 2″) to give out.
Lew and Evan will be manning a booth (#4925) in the Expo Hall. This is the largest hall, and our booth is at the back. We’ll be showing the process we use in producing books, including the first draft layout pages done with scissors and scotch tape. We’ll also be selling copies of our building books, and giving away mini books.
Photo: draining dish rack in our kitchen built (20 years ago) by Lew Lewandowski
Tags: building, communication, cooking, farming, fishing, food, foraging, gardening, homesteading, salvaged materials, small homes 
I fell in love with this magazine the first time I laid eyes on it. The layout, the drawings, the consistency. There are no ads! The design is elegant. The front cover and rear cover of each issue are always lovely paintings of food by two different artists: Robert Papp and John Burgoyne.
Not only does it look good in the graphic arts sense, but the articles and recipes look to be a cook’s delight.
It’s tied in with the TV and radio shows America’s Test Kitchen.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/
There was a well-written, funny, perceptive article in the New York Times today (actually dated 5/1/13) by Henry Alford on Williamsburg (in Brooklyn). I’ve been telling people over the past few years that these twentysomethings are different.; they’re a new ballgame.
Henry not only gets what’s going on with young people, he likes them:
“I like this generation of young folk. Their food is terrific, and they find even the most insignificant things “awesome.” I admire their adventuresome quality vis-à-vis fixed-gear bike-riding and their non-prudishness in the face of nudity. Yes, their attention to detail on the fronts of locavorism and beard care can verge on the precious, but I’d much rather have a young Abe Lincoln serve me his roof-grown mâche than I would have an F. Scott Fitzgerald vomit all over my straw boater. Today’s twentysomethings are self-respecting, obvi.
If every youth movement says as much about the status quo as it does about itself, then this new eco-conscious, agrarian-seeming, hair-celebrating nexus of locavorism is maybe telling us that the rest of us need to plunge our fingers into the rich loam of the earth, literally and metaphorically.…”
Click here. I subscribe to the Times, so get the full stories on their website. If you don’t, I’d go buy today’s paper if possible, this article (in the Style section) is worth it. I think it’s a journalistic reporting masterpiece. Very funny, and some exquisite turns of phrase. Ridic. Obvi.
My friend Louie recently sold his sailboat, the Roy Fox, to his friend Bill, and last week, Louie, Bill, and Titsch sailed the boat from Bodega Bay down the coast to Sausalito. Actually, they motored all the way, leaving Bodega at sunset in order to come under the Golden gate Bridge with an incoming tide. When I met them in Mill Valley, they been up all night, freezing, and were wind burned and wiped out.
We had dinner at Frantoio’s; I’d seen the restaurant, but never been there before. Not only is the food great, but a feature at this very Italian restaurant is a giant olive press for making olive oil. During olive pressing season, the press operates night and day, so customers can watch the magic of oil coming from olives while having dinner.
With a bottle of Pinot Noir, the hardship of 20 sleepless hours at sea faded into memory, and we had a great dinner.
“You know my beans will be unbrewed,
You know that I would be a liar,
If I were to say to you,
The caffeine content was much higher.”
Barista art: https://baristart.tumblr.com/
Sent us by Richard Jones
Sunday afternoon, am listening to “America’s Back 40,” great Sunday afternoon program on KPFA by Mary Tilson. All my kind of music. A lot of pleasant surprises by Mary, who’s obviously got a great collection.
Also, our local radio station, KWMR has a unique selection of music.
A few days back, I drove north and took a long beach walk and returned with mussels and seaweed (for garden and food). These days I get the smaller mussels, big ones are pretty tough. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll just steam them in a little water, red wine, and chopped parsley and garlic.This time the broth turned out purple from the wine. Infusion of ocean essence.
Had a pigeon 2 nights ago. They’ve proved tough, so I hung this one for few days and it was really good. With red wine, rice, garden greens.
I just read the chapter “Aging Game Birds” in Hunt, Gather, Cook by Hank Shaw, a very good book (Rodale) on obtaining and cooking from the wild. Also was reading about cooking pigeons in Chez Panisse Cooking by Paul Bertolli/Alice Waters. They serve a lot of pigeons at the restaurant, they say. They have a recipe for making broth from the bones, which are baked or grilled, then chopped up with big cleaver and simmered an hour in light beef or chicken broth. I’m going to try it in the next day or two, with the pigeon bones and duck bones. Got to be good.
