Witchhazel is blooming at my house, a sign that spring is nearly here. I’m planning my garden, which will be my second one ever, if it comes to fruition.
I started my first garden by reading piles of books. I spent the winter lingering over every kitchen garden book Amazon had to offer, littering my […]

Since goats have provided almost all of our dairy for the last year or so — thank goodness for goats! — when I read Elanor’s resolution to go goat in 2008, I felt inspired to offer tips for finding great-tasting goat dairy products.

Still, Jennie did try, since you can’t keep farm animals on your Seattle lot unless it’s 20,000 square feet or larger —and who has nearly half an acre in the city?… A distant neighbor who had never seen the goats overheard her talking about them at a party —and turned her in. When the inspector told her she couldn’t keep her goats, Jennie approached city councilmember Richard Conlin and asked whether he could help her persuade the city’s Department of Planning and Development to allow her to keep the goats.

The Butter Bitch and I have been on hiatus for the past few months, due to our day jobs and ongoing projects. The Seattle Times’ Pacific Northwest Sunday Magazine devotes most of this week’s issue to an overview of Washington’s locavorean movement and the promotion of sustainability in the wine.
The Bounty Around Us looks at […]

Male sterility and beef steroids: A new study says men whose moms ate a lot of beef during their pregnancy have a sperm count at 25% below normal. Possible suspects? Anabolic steroids used to fatten cattle in the U.S., or pesticides and other contaminants. Although the study is a little shaky, relying on women’s recollections […]

The idea of “carbon neutrality”, or reducing one’s carbon footprint, has been much in the news lately, what with Al Gore’s Academy Award win for “An Inconvenient Truth” and subsequent reports related to the amount of energy his Tennessee home is reported to consume. While the Gores do have a fairly large house, which […]

Fiber — like armor for your gut: Thought there was nothing new to say about last year’s E. coli outbreaks? Think again. This op-ed says the best defense against the bad bugs starts with your own stomach: eat more fiber, so your gut’s bacteria can fight off invaders. Recommended are onions, leeks, garlic, chicory and […]

Not to be outdone by a list of favorites from our old stomping grounds, we here in the Puget Sound region have our own list of fine foods to celebrate. With one exception, we had not encountered these treats before 2006.
1. Fish Brewing Company’s Winterfish: This seasonal, organic beer from Olympia - well […]

Until fairly recently, I reserved the same fear for raw milk as I did for rare hamburgers and pork chops–things that were as likely as not to kill me through the introduction of nasty parasites and bacteria into my digestive system.  But shortly after we started this blog, I realized that if I wanted to […]

“Guess what I found at the farmers market?” the Butter Bitch announced last Sunday. “Lettuce!”

Indeed she had, and she brought a head home as proof. The farmers cover the lettuce in the fields to protect their crop from the late autumn cold in the north. I’m surprised that the trick worked, but […]

A couple of months ago, Man of La Muncha brought home a chocolate bar along with our normal haul of groceries. I pounced on the bar as it emerged from the shopping bag, to find that the flavor was, (ahem), “Bread and Chocolate”. The brand was 3400 Phinney, and the maker was someone […]

New York Times*: The youth organization once known as Future Farmers of America is thriving, having dropped any reference to actual farming from its name. The membership has changed as well: more FFA members now come from towns & suburbs and want to be not farmers, but food-industry scientists, seed bioengineers, florists, landscapers and renewable […]

Our half-birthday was Nov. 9, but we forgot. Blog years are like dog years — six months seems like a long time, so we wanted to take stock.
Posts: 413
Traffic: From 475 visitors in May — probably all of them people who knew our real names — to being on track for 8,000+ in November. (We […]

Last Saturday, the Butter Bitch and I made a visit to the University Farmers Market. The farmers market used to be our neighborhood market, but Interstate 5 dissuaded us from visiting often. We went to find out why the market needs to be saved and to investigate a rumor of local, organic butter. […]

This weekend, Man of La Muncha and I made two trips to Tilth, which is the second restaurant in the country to receive Oregon Tilth organic certification. We had heard about the restaurant from various friends, who felt that it was right up our alley. We’ve had an uncharacteristically busy schedule over the […]