The Hands-On Home: A Seasonal Guide to Cooking, Preserving, and Natural Homekeeping

This is urban homekeeping with an honest edge. There are no holier-than-thou platitudes. Author Strauss is like that good friend to whom you always go for advice — because she knows the best of everything. Whether it’s cooking, home care, or personal care, Strauss has sustainable suggestions to shine up your life. Recommended By Tracey T., Powells.com

Want to create an organized, productive, and beautiful kitchen and home? Popular Seattle blogger, Erica Strauss (Northwest Edible Life) shows us how in this modern homekeeping handbook for thrifty DIYers who care about sustainability. A fresh take on modern homemaking, this is a practical (and sometimes sassy) guide to maximizing your time, effort, and energy in the kitchen and beyond. With a focus on less consumerism, it will teach you how to organize your kitchen and home to make the best use of your time. For those yearning to live a more ecologically minded, grounded lifestyle, this book is full of practical, no-nonsense advice, fabulous recipes, and time- and money-saving techniques.

"Buy this book! Far beyond the realm of mere pickles and jam, Erica Strauss provides expert insight into everything we should have learned from our wise great-grandmothers. I am edified to learn that the sweat equity and creativity behind body soap, laundry soap, and a whole panoply of personal and home care products is just as important as the food we grow and eat. Season by season, room by room, Strauss is your skilled guide to a more holistic and healthy way to celebrate domestic bliss." Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Asian Pickles

"This title enables an easy start down the path to a homemade, fun, environmentally responsible lifestyle. Home cooks will discover fresh recipes and adopt techniques the author shared from her professional kitchen experience." Library Journal

"[Erica Strauss is] something like a one-woman Sunset magazine for home cooks and gardeners in the Seattle region. In this 'seasonal guide to cooking, preserving, and natural home keeping ' she relays recipes and advice for making your kitchen and home as DIY as you like, from making your own tortillas to making your own toothpaste. It’s an attractively photographed, empowering doorstop of a book, whether readers want to learn canning or want to change their lives.” Rebekah Denn, Seattle Times

Erica Strauss is the founder of Northwest Edible Life, one of the most popular and well-respected urban-homesteading and gardening blogs in the country. A professionally trained chef, she shares her fun and punchy perspective on garden-to-table eating and living a slower life though her writings. Erica was featured in Best Food Writing 2013 and regularly writes for national cooking and gardening magazines.