Creating environmentally designed habitats for sustainable living in Costa Rica and beyond…
OK, here’s the brew I’ve been waiting for, wanting to try for months, yearning for - a home-brewed Belgian IPA made right here in Nicaragua. I’m thinking of throwing a packet of dried Belgian yeast into our palm-thatch roof so it can just be there, growing, hanging out, ready to bring yeasty goodness to any …
Kim spent 8 years living in Thailand and learned some great recipes for delicious and healthy Thai food. One of my favorites is the Green Papaya salad. It's super easy to make, fresh and healthy, looks awesome with all the colors, and tastes so good! Ingredients for the salad grated green papaya - It might …
The third, and possibly the best batch, in tropical home brewing adventures, almost met its end in the moldy rainy season condition of June. The rainy season brings clouds of mold that drift invisibly through the air landing on everything. When I checked the carboy on the last day of the 15-day fermentation, I …
We started planting the garden in late October, 2011- lots of chillies (habanero, jalapeno, arbol, New Mex, serrano and others), various greens, tomatoes, Thai basil, lemongrass, dill, tea tree, sunflowers and a bunch of randoms like purslane and indigo. Some things never sprouted at all, some sprouted and died soon after, and some flourished. Holly's …
I'll admit that I was a doubter. After participating in numerous homebrewing efforts over the years I learned that it isn't easy, there's a lot that can go wrong, and especially considering our lack of refined equipment I thought our first effort might not be that awesome. I was wrong. So very wrong... To read …
We are all about the homemade - home-brewed IPAs, home-fermented honey wine, and now hand-rolled cacao balls! Our buddy who lives in Costa Rica brought up a big box full of rich gooey chocolate liquor which he is importing into the US to be made into fancy desserts by the artsy, sustainable San Fran restaurant …
Living in Nicaragua is awesome. Warm weather, warm waves, affordable homesteading, and a simple life lived barefoot. There are however a few things we miss about the US - mexican food, fast internet, and good beer! Luckily, Kim is an amazing cook, so we get our mexican food fix via homemade guacamole and chipotle chicken …
When we were at the Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, CA last September, fermented pleasures were not (as usual) far from our minds. We had already rounded up beer-making supplies to take back to Nicaragua (no more being stuck with just Victoria and it's twin Tona!) and had been sampling micro-brews on the …
On our standard tri-yearly drive between Oregon and LA we finally stopped in the deliciously named Hopland to check out the Real Goods Solar Living Institute. The Tiny House was obviously appealing – a micro home on a trailer built with recycled materials including a recycled solar panel desk. We liked the size, the feel …
Hiking through permaculture farms and admiring bamboo structures makes one quite thirsty. Usually, quality hoppy libations are inaccessible in Latin America, which is why we were so ecstatic to happen upon Cafe Flor and Roche's Brewery in Canoa, Ecuador. We'd heard rumors of locally brewed IPAs on tap served with burritos. It was just what …
Eco:Design:Life 