Memories of ArkansasSome of my best memories are in the backdrop of the natural beauty of Arkansas, especially its parks: Lake Dardanelle, the lodge at Mount Magazine, taking every single out-of-state visitor up Mount Nebo, the little local park at Piney Bay, near where we used to live.  Hours and hours of fishing, family picnics, [...]

How to get rid of the fishy smell and taste of fish.Question: I don't mind fish. I really like salmon baked on a cedar plank, and tuna salad – I love fish and chips. However, I hate anything that tastes or smells fishy. I don't know which kinds of fish are more likely to have [...]

Make Fondue, Pasta, Soup and More, Using Only Your Rice Cooker! Now, I have experimented a few times with my rice cooker, especially one night when the gas (propane) ran out in the middle of cooking, and I had to finish in the rice cooker.  But this is a great little video that shows how [...]

Backyard Aquaponics Garden gurus 1 Neville Passmore from the Garden Gurus talks about Backyard Aquaponics.  This system mixes aquaculture and hydroponics with  food fish and a veggie garden working together to give you several benefits including filtering the fishpond, fertilizing the garden, and fresh tasty food from your own backyard.

Food is, of course, the most basic of our needs beyond water and air (and toilet paper!). Isn’t it funny how we take these simple things for granted? You breathe in and out, you pull on the roll, you turn on the tap, you pop a Lean Cuisine into the microwave, or answer, “Yes”, to “Fries with that?” Easy, automatic, instant. But of course, it’s not. All of these things, with the exception of air, require a complicated combination of infrastructure and workforce to get to us. We only think about it when the system breaks down (imagine a toilet paper factory worker’s strike!), or when we pay our bills.

The River Why by David James DuncanThis is one of those rare perfect books that I will want to keep forever to loan out to friends in need of enlightenment or encouragement. It has everything: a good storyline; characters that are real, complex and that you would want to meet in real life; it’s funny; [...]

New – Most Simple Delectable Recipe for Trout RoeMy husband caught a beautiful trout a few nights ago. It was full of roe (that’s fish eggs, also known as caviar). I’ve had commercial caviar before, you eat it on crackers with champagne. And I’ve had catfish, bluegill and bass roe before. They are in a [...]

Quick Kitchen Tip #2 – Save money by stretching your meatIf you stretch your meat with pasta, potatoes, veggies, etc. you can buy even expensive cuts of meat and fish with relatively little cost. Most Americans (and people in other developed countries) eat too much meat anyway, and need more fruits and vegetables in their [...]

Super Tasty Tuna or Salmon SaladIt’s getting warmer, and quick salads with bread or crackers are great for lunch! When I was a kid, tuna salad meant tuna, mayonnaise, and pickles. Blah. It tasted good, but Blah. This recipe is based off of one in the Joy of Cooking, which I have modified for my [...]

All About German BeerGerman. Beer. These two words just seem to go together. Beer makes us think of bratwurst, Oktoberfest, crazy drunken Germans in leiderhosen, beer steins, and so on. And German beer tastes great! Even many of the popular US beers, Busch for example, are from original recipes brought to America from Germany. According [...]