Spill the Beans: Let the harvest begin

Tiny, greenish-yellow bulbs appeared in two places in the garden. And sure enough, about a month later, instead of one rhubarb plant, just where I planted it, I had two rhubarb plants growing rogue in the garden. And you will soon learn that I am all about the rogue plants, tenacious enough to survive the winter and come up in the spring; be it tender perennial herbs that have no business coming back, lettuce and tomatoes that have self-seeded the previous fall or rhubarb plants that get tilled into the ground and redistributed by some well-meaning farmer. Read More
Sleepy Owl's Prairie Berry pastry makes a sweet treat.

Nothing sleepy about this owl

Toupin describes the journey from at-home side-line to storefront bakery over the past four years as, "pretty wild, but awesome and so encouraging" because their passion for bread was met by an eager market demanding their product. Read More

What to drink if you don’t have a fireplace

I love a good, hot drink. Coffee in the morning. Tea later on in the day. And when it’s really cold, there’s nothing like warm alcohol by the fire to take the chill out of the air and out of the body. At least that’s how a hot-buttered rum or two will make you feel. Trust me. You won’t be sorry. Read More

Get all sour

There are three major reasons why I haven’t made more sour ales: it can take two or more years for sour beers to reach readiness, my wife is not a fan of sour, and I’m afraid to infect my brew area. Read More