Culinary July 10, 2024 Review Of North Spore Organic Blue Oyster ‘Spray & Grow’ Mushroom Growing Kit If you read my review of North Spore’s lion’s mane kit, you’ll know I had a lot of fun with those mushrooms. My experience with the North Spore’s blue oyster spray kit couldn’t have been more different. It was early March when I purchased the lion’s mane kit from Woodman’s supermarket. I didn’t shop there ...
Uncategorized June 6, 2024 In Chicago Goodwill Stores, HVAC Systems Fill The Air With Chemicals Have you ever been inside a Goodwill secondhand store somewhere in Chicagoland or Southeastern Wisconsin, and found yourself thinking: “What the heck is that horrible smell?”, “Why does this Goodwill always stink so bad?”, or “Why does this Goodwill store smell exactly the same as the one across town?” The answers to these questions are ...
Culinary, Uncategorized May 31, 2024 Fresh Ideas for Cleaning Stainless Steel Tea Strainers, Yeti Travel Mugs, and Plastic Lids with Persistent Dish Soap/ Dishwasher Detergent Odor TL:DR: Use magic erasers to scour buildup off stainless steel walls. Leave plastic lids outside for weeks/months until the detergent scent completely dissipates. I recently took a vacation to Fort Meyers, Florida. Washing dishes in my hotel suite, I noticed the Fort Meyers water had a distinct fishy odor, the odor of the Floridan Aquifer ...
Culinary May 4, 2024 Review Of North Spore Organic Lion’s Mane ‘Spray & Grow’ Mushroom Growing Kit I purchased the North Spore organic lion’s mane mushroom kit at a supermarket (Woodman’s in Buffalo Grove, Ill.) The store sold it for only $20. I’m not sure if North Spore has agreements with other retailers, but locally scoring a kit might save you ten bucks. On the other hand, the online bag may be ...
Culinary March 22, 2024 Returning My KitchenAid Double Oven Gas Range (Model KFGD500ESS) TL;DR The broiler routinely turns itself off. I’ve owned the KitchenAid Double Oven Gas Range for about 30 days. Each day, I’ve cooked two meals. Some went off without a hitch. Every time I turned on the broiler, though, disaster struck. Last night’s salmon dinner was the final straw. I’m returning the double oven. Its ...
Culinary May 2, 2024 Two Things I Didn’t Like About The KitchenAid Double Oven’s Design (Model KFGD500ESS) The KitchenAid Double Oven’s awful, useless broiler was the primary reason I returned the appliance. I didn’t love the little things about the cooker, either. I didn’t Like the Grates The first thing I noticed about the KitchenAid Double Oven on display in the store was that its stainless-steel top was scratched to hell near ...
Books, Pigeons April 7, 2023 The Origin of the Old Canard that Pigeons Spread Disease At this very moment, somewhere in some derelict, tax-burdened, crime-ridden metropolitan hell-hole, an adorable little grey bird totters across a sidewalk. A man (or woman) swings his (or her) leg toward the innocent creature. Though the ill-timed kick badly misses the bird, it opens its wings and does a little flutter-hop to get away. “Filthy, ...
Culinary March 10, 2023 Tips for Sharpening Old Damaged Knives With the Chef’s Choice Sharpening Station In 2015 I purchased my Chef’s Choice sharpening station. The manual was full of information, much of it baffling to a person ignorant of knives. I’d thought of the electric sharpener as a way out of learning sharpening stones, but, of course, one must learn the machine’s operation. This was clear when I’d allow family ...
Books, Reviews February 18, 2023 Gutbliss by Robynne Chutkan I’ve read mainstream doctor authors (Hyman, Gundry, Mercola, Perlmutter, etc.) and more than a handful of books about food, the microbiome, and digestion. Gutbliss showed me how little I actually knew about the workings of our guts. Celebrity cardiologists and neurologists write much about diet, but they’re not gastroenterologists. Their books never explain how or ...
Books, Reviews February 17, 2023 Land Without Justice: An Autobiography of His Youth by Milovan Djilas Last October on our trip to Kansas City to see the Bills play the Chiefs, I was lucky to find Land Without Justice at Steel’s Used Books. Mr. Steel sold us a goodly pile of interesting books at a reasonable price. We were sorry to hear that in the years prior, he’d been forced to ...
Fancy Bologna 
