When you buy a book in Japan, the checkout person will ask you if you want your book covered. Normally they cover it with a kind of parchment printed with the bookshop’s name. This is done to protect the book (or perhaps hide what you’re reading from everyone on the subway). Here is how you […]
DIY
Thyme Flavoured Salt
Michael Stadtländer is a German chef who set up an eccentric farm-restaurant in rural Ontario. On Stadtländer’s sprawling property, Eigensinn Farm, his team grows the organic produce and raises the free-range pigs, sheep, rabbit, goat, and poultry for his restaurant at the farmhouse. He also has beehives for honey, a stand of sugar maples for maple syrup, and he combs […]
DIY: How To Make Vanilla Sugar
Once you have a vanilla bean, it is really simple to make your own vanilla sugar. When we lived in Saudi Arabia, it was impossible to buy vanilla extract since it was made with alcohol – and alcohol was illegal. Instead, I would bring Dr. Oetker vanilla sugar from Germany every summer to use in my […]
DIY: How to Make Lavender Sugar
This is a lovely way to lightly scent sugar with the floral essence of lavender. I like to use it in place of regular white sugar in some baking (excellent in shortbreads), sprinkled on some sugar cookies, or even as a sweetener in a cup of tea. It takes a few days to ‘steep,’ but […]
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DIY: Lavender Sugar + Salt Scrub
Greece. Indonesia. Thailand. Whenever our family would visit a beach during our vacations, our mom would always sit in the shallows and rub sand over her arms and legs. While we kids were playing and messing around, we laughed at how she looked covered in damp sand. But it seems like she had the last laugh, since […]