Salt City Sinner

posted on 11/21/2019 by the Salt City Sinner   So you’ve made gravy and cranberries, and pre-made your stuffing, you say? Well, hot diggity dog! You’re almost home free! To get you even closer, today we address a subject of vital national concern and existential import; pies. Now, your traditional Thanksgiving pie is (obviously) pumpkin. While pumpkin is literally my least favorite pie, I am selfless and enlightened enough to acknowledge that if you dummies want pumpkin pie, it should at least be halfway decent. AND I insist that I get an apple pie out of the whole affair. Thus, let’s start by talking crust. A home-made crust is not as hard to make as you might think. Start with 2.5 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add 2 tablespoons sugar and x. Mix your dry pie crust components thoroughly and then cut in 12 tablespoons of chilled butter using two butter knives like so: Then cut in 8 tablespoons of chilled vegetable shortening. Fold...

posted on 11/19/2018 by the Salt City Sinner Thanksgiving! That time of year when long-simmering political tensions combine with booze, forced fellowship, and sharp cutlery! What could go wrong? In the interests of reducing the number of stab wounds you have to inflict on your loved ones this year, I thought I’d share a few down-home Turkey Day secrets from the Salt City Sinner Consolidated Data Products and Home Cookin’ Division. Enjoy! Cranberries from Scratch Are Easy (and Unspeakably Delicious) It isn’t as hard to make home-cooked, from-scratch cranberries as you may think! Start with a large bag – easy to find in the produce section this time of year (“unavoidable” might be the word). Wash your berries (just like coach taught you to do after gym class). Put them in a large pot (see photo), and mix in about a cup of orange juice, half a zested orange peel, and a peeled orange, seeded and diced into cranberry-sized chunks. Add about four cups of...

posted on 7/28/2013 by the Salt City Sinner peace through victory, victory through vegetables It struck me the other day that while I have   written about  my community garden – and community gardening in general – before, I haven't taken the time to explain why gardening is something I enjoy, and something you might want to try yourself. As a matter of fact gardening is a capital g capital t Good Thing, for you, for your community, and for America! Gardening is an activity with deep roots (lol) in human existence. We cultivate the soil and it cultivates us back. The act of planting and tending to vegetables, flowers, herbs, whatever strikes your fancy, teaches us important lessons about the interconnectedness of life and the natural rhythms, cycles and processes that are inextricably a part of human life as well as the life of the garden. Gardening also has outputs as well as inputs: never underestimate the appeal of a large supply of fresh, delicious, healthy pro...

posted on 5/2/2013 by the Salt City Sinner in one of my very favorite photographs of all time, L. Ron Hubbard interrogates a tomato As spring finally and gloriously breaks over Salt Lake City like a trash sack full of champagne flutes, it is time to return to the comforting bosom of the rich loam! To return and, alas, to say goodbye to my current raised garden bed. Salt Lake City, you see, is   installing  a streetcar line in the Sugar House area. In addition to closing 11th East (the main foot-and-car-traffic thoroughfare) for a few years, which has   led to protests  from local merchants, the construction will be leveling the community gardens where I have had a plot since early 2012. Our garden has formed a committee (that granola hippie solution of first and last resort) to determine where all of us poor gardeners will land next year. Until then, it's back to my home away from home for another season of growing delicious things to eat. Right now, of ...

posted 4/6/2012 by the Salt City Sinner As far as Fourth of July campaign malarkey goes, I try to pay as little attention to it as possible during political campaigns. Willard Mitt "Mittens" Romney, however, coughed something up during a campaign stop day before yesterday in scenic Wolfeboro, NH, that was so weird that I couldn't let it slip past: "Happy Fourth of July!" Romney wished supporters as he criss-crossed the street, his Secret Service agents in tow, to shake as many hands as possible. "Happy Birthday, America!"   When one supporter yelled, "Save our spirit," Romney responded with an emphatic "You bet!"   "Get out and vote next year, this November, I mean!" said Romney, wiping beads of sweat off his brow. At one point, stopping to guzzle a glass of lemonade, Romney was asked how it tasted, to which he replied, "Lemon. Wet. Good." Maybe he was suffering from heat stroke?

posted 7/4/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Summertime, and the livin' is easy! While the Mountain West may be engulfed in flames , and the East has reverted to the summer lifestyle of 1776 , my garden is going pretty well. One thing at a time, my friends. When we last visited my little plot at Sugar House Community Gardens, I made a few blunders. It turns out that bok choi needs to be harvested the first time it flowers (I got some bad advice!). I was also late in harvesting my spinach: both plants were total losses. On the other hand: Radishes! I collected an early harvest of these guys while thinning out the crop. I also harvested some kale: And other cabbagey salad greens: The radishes that I harvested are heirloom, and really interesting once you slice into them. They are also mad spicy. Here was my total harvest from thinning/replanting yesterday: So I pulled out dead spinach (harvest it early!) and bok choi (harvest it when it flowers!) and th...

Posted on 6/13/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Here in Salt City, temperatures are on the rise, and the sun is aggressively radiant - so much so that driving East in the morning or West in the evening is an exercise in driving blind. Things are popping up everywhere (both in terms of greenery and continued political discontent )! Not long ago, I posted about my plot in Sugar House Community Gardens. When I planted and added my first soil amendment (coconut husks, which absorb and re-release water in an almost magical way), my plot looked like this: Well, brothers and sisters, feast your eyes: Thai basil, radishes, beets, onions, bok choi, mystery beans, peppers, Swiss chard, amaranth - you name it, I'm growing it. My bok choi, which I have had to pinch five or six generations of flowers off of to encourage leafy growth, is going NUTS (as are my onions): I even have one winter squash plant that I might have to trellis eventually. I also have the mystery bean...

posted on 4/15/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Spring! Spring is here, and it's time to plant cold weather crops . I garden for a living (more on that some other time), and this time of year I eat, sleep, breathe and dream gardening. In addition to refugee gardens at eight community garden sites throughout the Salt Lake City area - with our most far-flung garden located in the misty, legendary Kingdom of Magna - I have my own plot at the newly minted Sugar House Community Gardens , near my parents' place, located on what used to be a decrepit tennis court near Fairmont Park. Yes sir, I am Loyal to my Soil: That's after a light watering and a turning of the first six inches of topsoil. Despite what some garden guides say, and what some gardeners believe, I have heard frequently enough from enough Master Gardeners (yes, that's a technical title you have to earn) that only the top six inches of soil needs serious cultivation / tampering. That soil right ...

Note: much (but not all) of the source material for this was taken from Path to Freedom Urban Homestead  and Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen's invaluable The Urban Homestead .  Are you bored? Of course you are! Boredom is the bedbug infestation of our collective psyche, a will-sapping, seemingly insurmountable foe that gnaws and gnaws. Good news: if you're bored, I have a fun project for you! You might live with your parents. You might rent a house. Like me, you may live in a small box with no porch, window planters to speak of, or any other luxuries that would make growing an edible foodstuff easier. It doesn't matter. If you can find a corner of a lot (vacant or otherwise), a patch of Mom's backyard, whatever, you can grow some organic, kick-ass food. Let's start simple. Observe: Not pretty, is it? North America is awash in used tires . No, this doesn't mean that you can get some fresh radials for a steal down at Crazy Vinnie's - it means t...