Home Garden & Cuisine
Enjoy homegrown food and cuisine!
Apple White Rules
By Steven V. Philips – In 1957, appliance design went in a bold new direction. Rounded-off rectangular shapes suddenly got sharp angles. (Technology had arrived to accurately bend steel sheet sharply.) This bold move by Frigidare, “The Sheer Look,” instantly made everyone else’s appliance designs look Art Deco-dowdy and pre-WW-2ish. Major appliance looks changed forever. Today, […]
In Gardening Sometimes It’s All About The Container
By Steven V. Philips – Risking getting planted myself, here’s the skinny from the world of flower-show judging. It’s the container that sometimes makes the difference and produces a winner and not the plant itself. Take a simple pteridophyta, (a fern to you). Plop it in a Trudy-Von-Snooty pot. Cover the soil with selected north-slope […]
Soapstone – What’s Old is New Again
By Steven V. Philips – For counters and sinks, soapstone is making a big comeback. In the April issue of F&M, I credited the renowned Professor Soapstone from Vermont Granite, Marble, Slate AND Soapstone, as the expert who answered my antique soapstone sink construction question. I might note that this inside information crowned me as […]
Let This Sink In
By Steven V. Philips – As a wee tyke, in the summers I’d get to stay at Grandpa Philips’ farm in northern Connecticut. They lived in a late 1800s farmhouse. It had an outhouse, but the kitchen was inside. Equipped with a cast-iron wood (really) burning stove. Ceiling grates allowed heat into the bedroom overhead, […]
Restaurant Trends Destined for Your Kitchen
By Marsha Fottler – If you eat out a lot, and we food writers do, various trends begin to emerge in restaurants both haute and humble. Eventually, the best of them work their way into your kitchen so trend spotting in restaurants is something well worth your time. Some of these trends are on the […]
Special Tool Delivery – Mailbox in the Garden
By Steven V. Philips – The Philips Estate is quite extensive and I am quite forgetful. OK. Only the latter is true and due to that, I often found myself out in the garden being sneered at by a suddenly crazed weed or a dead branch that appeared since sunrise. Really, just since sunrise. It […]
Kitchen Equipment Trends
By Marsha Fottler – Moroccan cooking is having a moment. It happens every few years because the cuisine of Morocco is always delicious and fairly accessible to home cooks now that global spices are available in local markets and online. When each renaissance occurs, this culinary trend always creates a product demand for the tagine. […]
Open and Shut Case
By Steven V. Philips – Kitchen knobs, pulls and handles. They’re all supposed to help you easily open doors, drawers or cabinets. There are probably more variations on this hardware item than there are TV cable options but, like the buggy-whip channel, some are more appropriate than others. The best knob or pull is one that […]
Kitchen Trends for 2013
By Marsha Fottler – Because of the still-struggling economy, kitchen renovations have stayed on the budget-friendly side during the past few years making trends difficult for the average homeowner to embrace. For instance, remodeling by going “green” is a concept that most Americans support until the numbers come in. Going green is generally more expensive, […]