Gretchen Kruesi

Listen! Towpath: The Podcast

By Gretchen Kruesi / February 8, 2021 / Comments Off on Listen! Towpath: The Podcast

Did you know that one of our books has a podcast? Authors Lori De Mori and Laura Jackson talk about their London-famous restaurant Towpath in their podcast of the same name. They share some of their favorite recipes too, giving aspiring cooks a chance to listen as they explain some of their trade secrets. The…

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mushroom

Fungi: All Around and Among Us

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 28, 2021 / Comments Off on Fungi: All Around and Among Us

Fungi are fundamental to life. As decomposers, they are critical to the formation and sustenance of soils and ecosystems. As endlessly innovative chemists, they devise and secrete enzymes that can break down a vast variety of materials, mitigate bacterial and viral infections, and interact—for better or worse—with the bodies and brains of animals that consume…

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meatloaf

The Best Meatloaf You’ll Ever Taste… Ever!

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 25, 2021 / Comments Off on The Best Meatloaf You’ll Ever Taste… Ever!

It’s a staple in almost every kitchen. It has hundreds – nay, thousands – of variations. It’s delicious, nutritious, and packed full of protein. It’s meatloaf!! This meatloaf recipe from London restaurant Towpath is sure to delight everyone in your household. And who knows, it may even end up taking the place of your tried-and-true family recipe. The…

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school

What If Schools Nurtured Imagination?

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 21, 2021 / Comments Off on What If Schools Nurtured Imagination?

Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In his book, author Rob Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it.…

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Organic Calendula Field

Medicine as a Process, Not a Product

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 19, 2021 / Comments Off on Medicine as a Process, Not a Product

What do you picture when you think of medicine? Pharmacy shelves filled with plastic bottles promising cures to your every ailment? A doctor’s office? Whatever you think of, you probably don’t picture fields of medicinal herbs or bookshelves covered in jars of amber-colored liquid or trained hands drying leaves and cutting roots. What if, at…

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tools

The Evolution of Tools: Rock, Paper, Scissors

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 4, 2021 / Comments Off on The Evolution of Tools: Rock, Paper, Scissors

We’ve all played Rock, Paper, Scissors; whether it’s to decide who’s goes first, who’s doing the dishes, or simply a way to pass the time– we all know the rules. While it’s a child’s game on the surface level, Nick Kary gleans a deeper meaning to this game of tools. The following excerpt is from Material…

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people running

The Power of Positive Self-Talk

By Gretchen Kruesi / January 1, 2021 / Comments Off on The Power of Positive Self-Talk

Are you starting off the new year with an athletic resolution? Maybe you want to get stronger or run faster and further, or maybe you just want to incorporate more movement into your daily life. If this sounds like you, it’s important to remember that your mindset is equally as important as your physical prowess.…

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Mugs of lambswool wassail.

Brew Recipe: Lambswool Wassail

By Gretchen Kruesi / December 23, 2020 / Comments Off on Brew Recipe: Lambswool Wassail

(Mugs of Lambswool Wassail. Photo by Jereme Zimmerman) Wassail! Whassat? We’ll tell you! From brewing genius Jereme Zimmerman, we have another out-of-the-barrel brew for you to try at home. Especially on those colder nights. This recipe is an excerpt from Brew Beer Like a Yeti by Jereme Zimmerman and has been adapted for the web. Winter…

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Miso under Electron Microscope

The Complexity of Membranes and the Beauty of the Unseen

By Gretchen Kruesi / December 21, 2020 / Comments Off on The Complexity of Membranes and the Beauty of the Unseen

It can be comforting to define things using strict categories; black and white, tasty or gross, good or evil. Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Fermentation as Metaphor, knows that this isn’t really the case in real life. Taking another lesson from the act and art of fermentation, Katz dives into the complexity of membranes and…

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Sage and Chili Butter on Fried Eggs (and everything else!)

By Gretchen Kruesi / December 17, 2020 / Comments Off on Sage and Chili Butter on Fried Eggs (and everything else!)

Spice up your fried eggs with this delicious caramelized sage and chili butter! Not only is this butter great on eggs, but also on pasta, roasted veggies, and an array of other great meals. Much like the sage chili butter in its kitchen, Towpath has a way of enhancing everything it touches. From planting gardens…

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Renewable Energy

The Energy Consumption Crisis

By Gretchen Kruesi / December 14, 2020 / Comments Off on The Energy Consumption Crisis

At the rate humanity is currently burning fossil fuels, we will create an uninhabitable earth long before we run out. So if the pressure of a finite resource doesn’t push us towards a renewable energy revolution, what will? And what will this revolution look like? This is an excerpt from A Small Farm Future by Chris…

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Bank Job

Big Bang 2: The Debtonator

By Gretchen Kruesi / November 20, 2020 / Comments Off on Big Bang 2: The Debtonator

(Photo: The ‘debt in transit’ van, filled with paper notes representing £1.2 million of toxic debt, mid-explosion: Big Bang 2. Credit: Graeme Truby.) Art hacks life when two filmmakers launch a project to cancel more than £1m of high-interest debt from their local community. Bank Job is a white-knuckle ride into the dark heart of…

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How Loving Labor Leads to a Brighter Future: Sourcing a Solution

By Gretchen Kruesi / November 17, 2020 / Comments Off on How Loving Labor Leads to a Brighter Future: Sourcing a Solution

Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant agrarian communities and loving labor can empower us to successfully confront these changes head on; and explores the pathways for delivering this vision politically. Challenging…

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What You Didn’t Learn About “Leaves of Grass” in School

By Gretchen Kruesi / November 13, 2020 / Comments Off on What You Didn’t Learn About “Leaves of Grass” in School

In her book Outrages, Naomi Wolf shows how legal persecutions of writers, and of men who loved men affected Symonds and his contemporaries, including Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and the painter Simeon Solomon. All the while, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was illicitly crossing the Atlantic and finding its way…

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Pills Medication

Treating Addiction: From Opium Poppy to Morphine to Naltrexone

By Gretchen Kruesi / November 5, 2020 / Comments Off on Treating Addiction: From Opium Poppy to Morphine to Naltrexone

LDN, originally prescribed in higher doses as a treatment for opioid addiction, works by blocking opioid receptors, thereby stimulating the production of endorphins, mitigating the inflammatory process, and stabilizing the immune response. Prescribed off-label and administered in small daily doses, this generic drug has proven useful in treating many different ailments. This excerpt was taken…

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Microbiome

Understanding your Microbiome: The Garbage in Your Gut

By Gretchen Kruesi / November 3, 2020 / Comments Off on Understanding your Microbiome: The Garbage in Your Gut

When treating multiple sclerosis, Dr. Michaël Friedman does not promise a miracle cure but instead provides the personal prescriptions he follows that are delaying the disease process and radically improving his quality of life, including dietary measures and supplements to support a healthy microbiome and hormone therapies that can reduce neuroinflammation and possibly promote neurorestoration.…

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Looking for Answers

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 29, 2020 / Comments Off on Looking for Answers

Since his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis a decade ago, Dr. Friedman has been searching for a cure for the disease. After years of research, he realized that he had some of the answers right in his naturopathic medicine toolbox, and others, surprisingly, lay in the realm of conventional medicine. Before all of this, he first…

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What Does a Sustainable Future Look Like?

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 22, 2020 / Comments Off on What Does a Sustainable Future Look Like?

In a time of looming uncertainties, what would a truly resilient society look like? Farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organizing society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, most sustainable, and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilization—and will yield humanity’s best chance at survival. The following excerpt is…

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All Hail the Beaver, Mighty Linchpin of the Natural World

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 21, 2020 / Comments Off on All Hail the Beaver, Mighty Linchpin of the Natural World

Ben Goldfarb and Derek Gow have the conversation you didn’t know you needed. This interview originally appeared on Literary Hub. The beaver — yes, really, the beaver — is Animalia’s most generous member. By building woody dams and engineering ponds, beavers furnish habitat for just about every creature that flies, walks, and swims in North…

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A Man, a Mission, and a Grumpy Beaver

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 15, 2020 / Comments Off on A Man, a Mission, and a Grumpy Beaver

Derek Gow knows a thing or two about beavers; as a farmer-turned-ecologist, he has spent close to 20 years reintroducing beavers to the wilds of Britain. Rewilding is no easy task, a large part of the process includes importing, quarantining, and assisting in the beavers’ reestablishment. And after so many years, Gow has met quite…

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Break Up Boring Dinners with Lamb and Hummus!

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 14, 2020 / Comments Off on Break Up Boring Dinners with Lamb and Hummus!

Have you been cooking the same handful of meals over, and over, and over again? We’ve all been there– life gets busy and your creativity in the kitchen is one of the first things to go. Well, we’re here to break you out of that boring dinner rut with this tasty recipe for Crispy Lamb…

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The Power of Fermentation: A Bubbling Transformation

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 10, 2020 / Comments Off on The Power of Fermentation: A Bubbling Transformation

Fermentation revivalist Sandor Ellix Katz has spent a lot of time thinking about fermentation. Stemming from his personal obsession with all things fermented, in his newest book, Katz meditates on his art and work, drawing connections between microbial communities and aspects of human culture: politics, religion, social and cultural movements, art, music, sexuality, identity, and…

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Coronavirus: Facts and Figures

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 7, 2020 / Comments Off on Coronavirus: Facts and Figures

There are a lot of questions flying around about the current coronavirus; How does Covid-19 compare with previous coronaviruses and the flu virus? What do infection numbers and the death rate tell us? Does the race for vaccine development make sense? What are the chances of success? Will the vaccine be safe? It is only…

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Chestnut koji with macro lens.

Fermentation as Metaphor

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 5, 2020 / Comments Off on Fermentation as Metaphor

If you’re a foodie, then you’re probably familiar with fermentation; sauerkraut, kimchi, cheese, and beer are just a few of the delicious foods that rely on it. Now, what if you thought about fermentation not just as a physical process, but as a metaphorical one? The following is an excerpt from Fermentation as Metaphor by…

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Discovering John Addington Symonds

By Gretchen Kruesi / October 2, 2020 / Comments Off on Discovering John Addington Symonds

In 1861, John Addington Symonds, a twenty-one-year-old student at Oxford who already knew he loved and was attracted to men, hastily wrote out a seeming renunciation of the long love poem he’d written to another young man. In her book Outrages, Naomi Wolf chronicles the struggle and eventual triumph of Symonds—who would become a poet,…

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