My Biochar

Biochar, a charcoal designed for soil enhancement. Biochar helps sequester carbon in the ground, provides habitat for microbes that are important in rebuilding overused and depleted soils.

The process to make biochar is called pyrolysis, which is burning under low oxygen conditions to reduce or eliminate carbon being released into the atmosphere.

I learned about biochar last year and have been making my own and experimenting with it ever since.

I usually make it using wood pellets available cheaply at most garden supply stores. Lately I have been incorporating mushroom growing blocks which are made out of sawdust inoculated with mushroom spores.

I currently use a small stove mad out of a paint can, a No. 10 can which is the big industrial sized cans used in kitchens, and a tall juice can used as a chimney. Here are a few photos:

I hope to build an even bigger set up so I can burn bigger pieces of wood and other discarded biomass.

I have started a local biochar meet-up page.

More on this at a later time.

Sushi Making with Kikka Sushi

Another fabulous class at Cupertino Whole Foods. It was class to benefit the Whole Planet Foundation. For $25, we made both maki and hand rolls for over an hour, learning from our very experienced instructor named Maki of Kikka Sushi. Although it looks relatively simple, there is a lot of tricks and tips. We learned to put a little bit of canola oil on our gloved hands so the rice doesn't stick. Maki came around to each person in the class to make sure we weren't using too much rice, and to make sure we weren't squeezing our bamboo rolling mat too hard, when we rolled the seaweed, he even pinched each of our hands gently to show us how much pressure to use. For each roll, we used a half sized sheet of seaweed, starting with a cucumber roll and then progressing to inside out rolls (my favorite) and three kinds of handrolls, using an assortment of ingredients : cucumbers, mango, grated carrot, raw salmon and avocado.

Pole bean trellis

Last week I built a trellis to grow pole beans that are supposed to grow ten feet long.

Here it is:

I'll let you know how it works out.

Up next...an entry about biochar

Workshop: Egg-Cellent Morning Dishes

Maggie Cattell taught her first class at Love Apple Farms on March 23, and it was terrific.

She started the class to about 20 -25 of us,  with a few demos, then we broke up into groups and had a chance to make all the recipes of the day.  Maggie was very organized and each station was well equipped for the recipes as we rotated around the room. There were dozens and dozens of eggs so we didn't need to be timid about running out of ingredients.  I prefer this style of class compared to others where each group makes a different recipe.


My group was a particularly good one, we were all pretty fearless and ended up with some very good results. Our cheese souffles were high and light. For our eggs benedict,  the poached eggs were done just right and the hollandaise  sauce  was smooth and delicious. I found out that I prefer classic French omelets, that are tender and pale with small curds,  and not the  country French omelets, that are rustic and have beautifully browned bottoms that are not to my liking.

I think eggs are awesome.  Even "expensive", organic free-range eggs are only about 50 cents each, and that is a great bargain for such a versatile protein source.

Probably due to her French training and work at Michelin starred restaurants, Maggie was an excellent instructor. She remained patient and calm through the day. Amazingly, with all the recipes we made, we finished almost on time, and she  treated us to  one final lesson on Sabayone  over fresh strawberries, while we were wrapping up the class. She told us this would be a good recipe if we were traveling, since it took so few ingredients, we could throw it together quite quickly.

I was so thrilled with the class, and everything that I learned, that I treated Dave and my mom to eggs benedict the next day. Although I dirtied a lot of dishes in the process, I thought it was quite worthwhile and, and they agreed!