“My interest was first piqued in Germany,” says Kathryn Lukas, “where I tasted unpasteurized kraut for the first time. I was intrigued by the barrel of kraut sitting in a cold dusty corner of a farmer’s root cellar. How could food sit out this temperature and not rot? Many years later I attended a natural chef culinary program and learned the basics of lactic acid fermentation and have been hooked ever since.”
Posts Tagged: Home & Garden 2012
Alta Avenue Home Wins Design Award
‘There is innate beauty in things that are highly functional,” explains Bernie Tershy as he stands proudly and comfortably inside his award-winning home on Alta Avenue. Between 2008 and 2010, Tershy and his wife worked with Anni Tilt of Berkeley-based Arkin Tilt Architects and Santa Cruz builder Marc Susskind to design and construct a home that reflected their environmental sensibilities and active lifestyle.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore
“I sure hope someone donates a forklift,” says Mark Burden, co-manager of Habitat for Humanity’s soon-to-open ReStore. And looking around its giant industrial space on Swift Street, it’s easy to see why. To the left of the former spice company factory floor sits a glowing purple sectional sofa that could easily sit nine. To the right, a gleaming ’50s-style electric oven, burners carefully arranged so one can access the rear pushbutton console without burning one’s wrists. And in the distance, a perfectly arranged stack of solid-core doors so thick and sturdy that a roomful of jocks could yell “What is it with the quarterback? Where the hell did they get that jerk?” all day long and not a peep would disturb your handcrafted yogurt project in the kitchen.
Santa Cruz Author Goes Zen in The Yard
For landscape designer and writer Zachiah Murray, walking into a garden is like walking into a meditation hall. She becomes grounded. Like the conscious energy that lingers even after the practitioners have gone, the plants call her to the present.
Canning Classes and Supplies
Anyone with a jones to can, pickle or otherwise preserve the summer harvest should make a pilgrimage to Mountain Feed and Farm Supply (9550 Hwy 9, Ben Lomond; open daily), where an entire building has been dedicated to food preservation supplies. Canning kettles, pressure cookers, tongs, funnels, thermometers and a gorgeous selection of Kerr, Weck and Quattro Stagione jars will make you want to quit your job and move in. If that’s too far to travel, their booth at the Aptos Farmers Market (6500 Soquel Dr., Saturdays 8am-noon) will most likely cover your needs.
A Few Canning Rules
Keep everything clean when you’re composing the jars, but don’t worry about sanitizing. The tomatoes aren’t sanitized, after all. Everything is sanitized in the hot water bath.
Hot Tomatoes And Canning Class
It’s 11am and I’m chopping my way through the largest pile of organic dry farmed tomatoes I’ve ever seen outside of a farmers market with nine other burgeoning homesteaders at Live Earth Farm outside of Watsonville. Jordan Champagne, our ringleader and canning queen at the Happy Girl Kitchen Co., is teaching us how to can tomatoes with the confidence, patience and optimism of a sage.
Spring Gardening Calendar
The spring calendar’s filling up with gardening classes, sales and workshops galore. Don’t be the sad people with no tomatoes this year!
Stripe’s Secrets: Retro Eclectic Design Interiors
Most people don’t look at a rusty old hammer and see the perfect thing to hang on an interior wall, or see a pile of padlocks as potential art or weatherbeaten wood as a place to put cherished photos. These are things that you find in junk piles and salvage yards. But to those with an eye for upcycling and repurposing, these things are treasures that have the potential to add an inspired touch to a space.
The Seeds of Renee’s Garden
It all began about 30 years ago, when passionate gardener Renee Shepherd met a friend from the Netherlands who was selling seeds. “He suggested that if I liked to garden so much I ought to try some vegetables that were bred for flavor, because this was in the ’80s when I got started, and most American supermarkets weren’t worrying about what things were tasting like,” says Shepherd, owner of Renee’s Garden.
