In the middle of the process of writing her book, “The Hands-On Home,” Erica Strauss invited a friend over for a visit. What her friend walked into was something she’d never seen before: A Strauss home disaster. Toys were strewn everywhere, jars and bottles full of jams and vinegar concoctions crowded the countertops and carboys full of fermenting liquids were stacked around the kitchen.
“My friend walks in and says, ‘I’ve never seen your house like this,’?” Strauss said. “That’s the irony: Writing a book about home care made my house completely fall apart temporarily.”
Strauss’ recently released book, “The Hands-On Home,” is a book about all things home: cooking, preserving, home and body care products and more. The book is an extension of the Edmonds mom’s blog, Northwest Edible Life, which has been educating urban homesteaders for the past five years.
“I didn’t know if I had it in me to write a book,” said Strauss, who also raises two children on top of curating her popular blog. “It takes months to write, months to edit and months to develop a marketing plan. It’s a very involved thing.”
Strauss spent six months in the second half of 2014 writing, researching and back-testing recipes just to get a draft to editors. Then she waited. “I felt like I’d run a marathon,” said Strauss, who credited her husband, Nick, and her publisher, Sasquatch Books, for helping her get across the finish line.
Months later, coming home from running errands, Strauss found a large box on her doorstep. Inside was the culmination of all that hard work.
“I was very proud,” Strauss said of first laying eyes on the finished product. “The pictures are beautiful, the binding is really cool; it’s a beautiful book.”
Strauss was approached by Sasquatch Books to write a book because of the popularity of her blog. Started in 2011, it was popular with Puget Sound dwellers first and then mushroomed. Strauss said she has regular readers up and down the West Coast, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and beyond. Her husband’s boss is an avid reader.
“It’s not just, ‘Oh, here’s my cute jam,’ it’s more how do we efficiently deal with the harvest,” Strauss said of her blog. “This is really old-school home economics.”
The blog has a humble, but practical origin story. Soon after her son was born, Strauss found herself on the couch thinking about gardening. As a trained chef, the Edmonds native loved growing her own produce and had gained intimate knowledge on what to plant where in her backyard garden.
“I realized I should start a blog and tell people about gardening in my hometown,” Strauss said. “Gardening is very local.”
The blog soon morphed into much more than just gardening. Strauss posted recipes for everything from roast chicken to glass cleaner. She wrote blogs on preserving pickles and brewing beer (her husband, Nick, is known as the Homebrew Husband).
“The blog became this place where I could express all of these productive home and garden things I was doing,” Strauss said. “The urban homesteading community really opens you up to all kinds of DIY projects.”
The blog revolves around the urban-homesteading ethos. Urban homesteading is a growing trend among city-dwellers who want to be more productive with limited space and more aware of how they spend their time and money. According to Strauss, this means, among other things, edible gardening, raising small livestock, attempting to reduce waste and living more sensibly.
“The people I write to are aware of issues like environmental damage and corporate influence and feel them deeply,” Strauss said. “All you can do is try to make your own tiny plot of land a little bit better. When you can put your focus on that, and not all the stuff out there in the big world, that helps people feel they’re doing their part.”
Strauss’ “tiny plot of land” hasn’t always been Edmonds. She grew up there, but moved away to attend the Seattle Culinary Academy, work at Seattle fine dining restaurant, Kaspars, and learn at the feet of Herb Farm’s Jerry Traunfeld during her externship. She only moved back after she got pregnant.
“I was like a salmon returning home to spawn,” Strauss said with a laugh.
Ultimately, Strauss said she hopes her blog and book give people the confidence to try something new.
“If you’re interested in this stuff, I hope that what I’ve done with the book is help give people the background information they need so that they don’t feel intimidated to try new stuff,” Strauss said.
Glass cleaner
Vodka: It’s not just for happy hour any more. The solvent qualities of alcohol are excellent for streak-free glass cleaning. If you can’t get cheap vodka or prefer not to keep it in the house, you can use one cup rubbing alcohol in this recipe and increase the distilled water to three cups. Rubbing alcohol is pretty stinky and definitely not good to inhale, but it’s cheaper. Your call.
I add a drop of blue food coloring to this spray so it’s the universal “glass cleaner” color and my kids won’t mistake it for plain water. I also use this for cleaning stainless steel and chrome—basically “shiny metal”—because it does such a great job at polishing up sinks and fixtures without leaving any residue.
2 cups cheap vodka
2 cups distilled water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
30 drops peppermint essential oil
1 drop blue food coloring (optional)
Add all the ingredients to a 32-ounce heavy-duty spray bottle. Tightly lid the bottle and give it a few turns to mix everything together. Label the bottle and store the cleaner tightly lidded and out of reach of kids. The cleaner will last for at least a year, though the essential oil scent may fade over time.
Makes 1 quart.
To use: Shake the glass cleaner well, then spray onto a clean lint-free towel or the surface you wish to clean. Wipe the glass, mirror, or polished metal clean, then polish the surface dry with a soft, lint-free rag (old cut-up cotton t-shirts are great for this).
Note: Less is more when it comes to cleaning glass. You will not get a better result if you spray the heck out of it.
2015 By Erica Strauss. All rights reserved. Excerpted from “The Hands-On Home” by permission of Sasquatch Books.
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