To Toss or Not to Toss: Pizza - Part 2

If you made it through my first epic-length entry on pizza making, bravo. What can I say? I’m passionate about the ‘za. I will try to be more succinct here and in future postings. And I promise to never again use the term, "‘za."

So when I left off, I had made a bunch of dough blobs. Feel free to skip that step. It’s a bit of a production that is often hard to justify when you can just go to Trader Joe’s (or wherever) and get a sack of ready-made pizza dough for a buck and change. I will say that the premade stuff yields a harder, denser crust, but it’s oh-so-convenient. Especially when your backyard abuts the Trader Joe’s parking lot (as mine does).

Handling your dough – that’s a not a euphemism for something naughty – is not an easy skill to acquire. For me, it entailed a lot of pizzeria stalking. At Pizzeria Mozza, they have a guy whose only duty is to prep crusts for the toppings guy and I spent many a lunch at the bar parked right in front of his station watching his every move. “Hey, Joe. The creepy dude who stares at you all the time is back.” Honest Abe, my eyes were on the dough the entire time.

But seriously, watching pizza guys is a great way to learn the technique. I’ve also spent meals watching them roll out pizzas at Terroni where they do this weird finger pressing thing that gets the dough super thin, at Bollini's where they use a super fat copper rolling pin to get them to the DOC specifications, and at Lucifer’s where they toss wads of dough in a machine that spits out perfect round crusts. They all make good pizzas but I prefer the hand-tossed crusts that are thin in the middle and a little puffy and doughy on the outside. My experience is that rolling pins squish out the air bubbles in the dough, making a crisper, stiffer and more uniform pizza, so if that’s your thing, by all means do it that way. It’s way easier.

I have to confess that my preference for the tossed crust has less to do with taste and more because it’s so much fun to throw pizza dough into the air. Haven’t you seen that commercial?

The basic idea is to punch the center of your dough down relatively flat while keeping it fat on the rim.

My apologies for the blurry photos

I first squish down a ring with my thumbs

Then I flatten the middle part

When it gets big enough, you drape the dough on your knuckles, slowly working and stretching the outside rim to make it wider while rotating the dough after every pull to keep things even. The dough should feel loose and elastic as you stretch it to a size that’s tossable. I don’t really know what the tossing does – maybe it helps retain a round shape – but it’s really, really cool.

I'm not yet ready to join the U.S. pizza throwing team. Sometimes my dough will get lopsided where I’ll have to dangle and shake it like a bed sheet to even it out. The goal is to work it until it’s fairly translucent in the center part, so whatever it takes to get there, right? A 200 gram lump of dough should make a nice, thin 10-12 inch pizza. Little holes can be fixed at the end with a finger pinch. But if your dough is correct, it should be surprisingly elastic and strong.

Ta-da!

If things do go south and your dough is tearing or lumpy and you want to start over again, I’d advise against it. If you re-wad everything, it won’t be as elastic and even the second time through and you’ll have worse problems. At that point it’s better to bring out the rolling pin and fix your mistakes with it. Or use the rolling pin to start with and quit being such a showoff. Or you can just screw it all and call Domino’s.

Next up: Toppings

Nouveau Spam

When I was a kid, I loved salami. If us kids were lucky, we’d get it sliced thin from the local deli and I’d stack it high with a ½ inch thick slab of cream cheese on white bread. A snack. Or else I’d just hack off giant hunks a salami, peel off the paper and eat them one after the other. And it was always Gallo Dry Salame (estranged younger brother of Ernest and Julio). It’s not like we had a choice; it was the only brand in town. Gallo Salame and Spam were pretty much all I knew about cured meat products for the first couple decades of my life.

Then in the early-90s, I became aware of the term charcuterie. You know, that trendy food craze that’s only been around since the 15 th century. I remember going to this Frenchy place in West Hollywood, Mimosa, and being dazzled by their charcuterie plate with its crock of mustard and the little cornichons. The rest of the food was not that remarkable but I’d never seen such a variety of pork products. Fat-speckled saucisson sec, aspic coated pâtés, pork rillettes, and other forcemeats I was too intimidated to ask about. I still don’t know much about French cured meats but that didn’t stop me from smuggling seven sausages when I went to the Dordogne a few years ago. La-di-da, aren’t I worldly?

These days, I never hear the word charcuterie. The new hip term seems to be salumi. Same thing, different country. And two names seem to be growing in ubiquity: the first is Paul Bertolli. A former executive chef at Chez Panisse, he latched onto Alice Waters’ slow food/local produce concept and pushed it to the geekiest levels. For example, he’s got a tasting database of 300+ tomato varieties and he mills his own flour for his pasta. I'm guessing he got beat up a lot as a kid. His book is amazing and also completely unrealistic for the home cook. I just don't see myself curing olives in lye anytime soon. But I’m glad that someone nerds out to the extent he does. He started curing his own meats in his restaurant basement for his restaurant, Oliveto, and then refined his techniques to where he created Fra’ Mani, a salumiere that distributes to restaurants and fancypants markets.

It’s very Whole Foods-y – sustainably raised pigs, no antibiotics, handcrafted, etc. Frankly, while it’s fantastic stuff, I haven’t had it enough to differentiate between their Salametto and the Salame Gentile and the Salame Toscano. They all have pork and salt and spices and wine and they all taste delicious. Clearly I need to eat more of it to appreciate their subtle differences. Please feel free to send me a gift order or two.

The other big name I keep hearing is the unimaginatively named Salumi Cured Meats. Started in Seattle by a retired aerospace engineer, they, too, adhere to traditional, artisanal techniques. They achieved prominence as the founder is the father and salumi provider of my culinary hero, Mario Batali. But make no mistake, its success is because of its dedication to quality, not nepotism. I’ve had everything from their guanciale, made from pig jowls, to their lardo, mouth-melting strips of pork fat and it’s all spectacular. But again, I think I need to sample much more of their offerings before I can truly make an informed judgment.

Armandino Batali

I should emphasize that I'm kinda talking out my butt. I'm just a consumer who has done no actual market research. I have no idea if these salumieres are making an impact on anyone besides myself. But there is no denying that salume is a significant culinary trend. Just last month my sister brought me some stunning fennel pollen salame made at a hotel restaurant in Seattle. I’ve never tasted salami that was so bold and meaty and at the same time complex and subtly layered. It lasted maybe two days.

The other porcine revelation I had was when I tasted La Quercia prosciutto. I read about it in the New York Times and was skeptical. How could a product from Iowa be better than the Italian DOC-controlled original? But just like Napa’s Chateau Montelena beat out Bordeaux in 1976, La Quercia has been hailed as being better than its Old World counterparts. Herb and Kathy Eckhouse, basically smartypants academics, spent years learning the art of prosciutto curing in Parma before returning to the States to ply their trade.

La Quercia Pork

Made from sustainably raised pigs – some from organic and Berkshire pigs (aka Kurobuta) – the meat is buttery and flavorful and the salumiere has a steady hand with the salt (the only other ingredient besides pork). The prosciutto slices are luscious; as sweet as they are salty. It is a completely different product than the overpriced, oversalted, German junk you get in the plastic packages at Trader Joe’s. Nothing against the Germans, but it’s a crime that they call that prosciutto.

So last weekend when my friends canceled dinner plans at the last second, I wasn't too bummed as I got to eat all the La Quercia prosciutto and Fra’ Mani Salame Toscano myself. Breakfast? Why not have a few shavings of salami? Afternoon snack? Why not have a couple slices of life-affirming prosciutto? And I’m not ashamed to say it: I chopped up the last three slices of prosciutto along with a handful of frozen peas to go with the Kraft mac & cheese I had for lunch. It was sublime.

I'm a Sucker.

I am not immune to marketing pressures. I’m sure you’ve seen the ads on TV, too. The one with the little cows and the little cowboys. Yes, I’m talking about Jack in the Box’s Mini Sirloin Burgers. It’s not that it’s a good commercial – using little people for cheap laughs ain’t cool – but there’s something irresistible about those cute little burgers. And I don’t even really eat hamburgers that often, let alone mini ones (I blame you, Eric Schlosser).

Though they’ve been around since the 1920s, over the past couple years mini-burgers, often called sliders, have become the hottest trend in ground beef cuisine. Even Thomas Keller serves a Wagyu beef version for fifteen bucks at his Bouchon Bakery. Or you can get them for a third of that at good ol’ Jack in the Box.

Earlier this year Burger King released Burger Shots, their version of sliders, but I went with Jack in the Box. One reason is that the Mini Sirloins look tastier. Jack in the Box, by and large, has better tasting menu items, i.e., more deep fried things and more stuff with bacon, and they make stuff to order. Also, it turns out that “sirloin burgers” isn’t just some marketing term. Turns out all sirloin burgers at Jack in the Box are actually made with ground sirloin, the steak-y part of the cow. The Burger Shots could be made from cow lips and butt for all I know.

I know people who won’t eat at Jack in the Box ever since four kids died from E.coli-tainted burgers in 1993. My feeling is that after that tragic debacle, Jack in the Box should be the safest place to get a burger. Since implementing the most rigorous food safety system in the industry, it probably is. So when I’m bored with In-N-Out, I’ll occasionally go to “the Box,” as the kids call it.

So yesterday, after passing a billboard, I caved and found myself in the drive-through line at my local “the Box” (actually, I have no idea what the kids call it). Not surprisingly, the mini-burgers are less cute when you see them congealing in a little cardboard tray and they smell strongly of ketchup. Not a great first impression.

Served in the Burger Coffin

I miss Clara Peller

The bun seems rather thick relative to the daintiness of the beef patty, too. It comes topped with ketchup (duh), a couple shards of barely grilled onions, and a scrap of American cheese.

Ate it anyway

Upon the first bite, I was immediately hit with an assertive beefy flavor. Must be that sirloin! The bun is pretty doughy and chewy (in a pleasant way). A little on the sweet side but I like it. As a whole, the burger is a little dry and it could use less ketchup and more (any) mustard. Plus, the two wimpy bits of onion don’t make much of an impression. But what really turned me off was gummy and decidedly un-cheeselike American cheese. Jack in the Box boasts on their site that their Swiss cheese is all natural. Their American cheese clearly is not. I ate it anyway.

All in all, it’s not bad. The quality of the beef and bun make it worth eating. I’d probably order it again except with extra onions, Swiss cheese and mustard. But probably not anytime soon since after I ate it, I stupidly looked up the nutritional information: 748 calories, 29 grams of fat and over 1600 mg of sodium. I know it’s hypocritical of me, the guy who just ate an entire box of mac & cheese for lunch, to complain about calorie overload. But if I’m going to debase my body with food, I want it to taste a heck of a lot better than a Mini Sirloin Burger. So props to you, Jack, for fooling me with your clever marketing. I won’t be so easily seduced by your new Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken sandwiches. Mmm…Buffalo Ranch…

Mac & Cheese(ish)

One of the first things I learned how to cook was Kraft™ Macaroni & Cheese. As an adolescent, I would make a box of it after school and eat it straight out of the pot with a wooden spoon while watching “Dick Van Dyke Show” reruns. Even though the cheese powder is a bright orange that doesn’t occur in nature, I still hold a special place in my heart for this American staple.

Since then, I’ve graduated to real macaroni and cheese – pasta with béchamel sauce blended with a mix of sharp and mild cheddar, a healthy dose of blue cheese and a teaspoon of mustard powder. But I would argue that the foodstuff that comes in the blue and white box is not macaroni and cheese but rather, Kraft™ Macaroni & Cheese. To compare the two is like comparing apples and Apple Jacks – they’re completely different entities. Apples only served as an inspiration for Apple Jacks. And I should also mention that no other packaged mac and cheese comes close to Kraft’s. I’ve had everything from Velveeta to Trader Joe’s to Kroger’s but none of them can match the sweetish/processed cheese taste of the sauce or the slippery, almost mushy, texture of the pasta.

Still, I restrict my consumption of Kraft Mac & Cheese mostly to hangovers and sickness. I don’t need the MSG (though I ain’t agin it) and all that orange food coloring can’t be good for you. Plus, it’s kinda pricey. I was at the market a while ago and it was on sale: 3 boxes for 4 dollars. I thought, “Damn! I remember when it was 3 for a dollar!” A split second later, I realized that I’m an old man. All I needed to complete the picture was a cane that I could shake in my clenched fist. “Why in my day…”

But this past Sunday I was at Target in the bargain bulk section (I didn’t know that was a section either) and they had various Kraft products on sale – 4 packs for $2.39. In fact, Kraft offers 33 different Macaroni & Cheese products, everything from Easy Mac to Bistro Deluxe Creamy Portobello Mushroom Mac & Cheese. That day Target had three different offerings – Thick & Creamy, Spirals & Cheese and Whole Grain. I figured that for $.60 a box, I could relive my youth. How could I not buy it? But the Thick & Creamy sounded disgusting and the Spirals & Cheese had half an ounce less pasta than the other boxes so I was forced to go with the Whole Grain. Plus, because it’s made with 50% whole grain (shouldn’t they call it Half Grain?), it’s healthy, right? I get 5 grams of fiber per serving, gosh darn it! Never mind the 590mg of salt and all that sodium tripolyphosphate.

Long story short, in the past three days I’ve eaten three boxes of Whole Grain Macaroni & Cheese (think of all that fiber!). It’s almost indistinguishable from the regular stuff - the pasta’s slightly grainier - and the bright orange sauce hasn’t changed a bit. Of course, everybody augments their mac and cheese a bit – a few dashes of Tabasco, bread crumbs, a can of tuna, etc. Me, I toss in a handful of whatever cheese is at hand. Today it was a little mozzarella and some asiago.

Good And here’s my big secret: a giant blop of salsa on the side. I take a bit of cold salsa and hot pasta in every bite. It may sound gross but it’s actually totally boss. A mix of temperatures, textures and flavors (see McDLT). Still sounds gross? Try it on New Year’s Day or some other post-drinking morning. I guarantee it will taste like manna from heaven. Especially with a leftover beer. Better

What's French for Douchebag?

So I was asked to prepare a high carbohydrate meal for some people who are running the L.A. Marathon tomorrow. I remembered the television coverage of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal (damn, I'm old) where marathoner, Frank Shorter, was showing Jim McKay his pre-race meal of bowls and bowls of spaghetti. It was pretty impressive; sort of like the 1970s version of Michael Phelps' 12,000 calorie diet.

The biggest difference is that Phelps won a zillion gold medals (yes, a zillion) and Shorter only won the silver that year. So my thought was to make the spaghetti and augment it with the protein dimension of meatballs, clearly the missing gold medal element from Shorter's game.

Meatballs in a nutshell:

1 pound of 20% fat ground beef 1.25 pounds of ground turkey 3/4 cup* of bread crumbs 2/3 cup of grated Parmesan Reggiano 1/4 cup of minced flat leaf parsley 1/2 tsp of dried thyme Salt & pepper

* I don't really measure so you should add "-ish" to all amounts.

Mix well, form lump into 1.5 inch meatballs, brown well on all sides (very important), simmer in marinara for 30 minutes.

Notes: I used turkey because Trader Joe's carries neither ground veal nor ground pork and I was too lazy to go to a proper butcher. I also used the fattiest beef I could find because as the fat renders out, it leaves the meatballs more tender. Other recipes call for eggs, but they make meatballs denser and bouncier. They stay together without the stupid egg as long as you're gentle with them in the browning stage.

I served the spaghetti and meatballs up with some deliciously overly buttered garlic bread and a crips Caesar salad (homemade dressing is the way to go: a couple anchovies, an egg yolk, juice of a lemon, clove of garlic, half a teaspoon of sugar (optional, kinda cheating) - zap it with a hand blender and a bunch of olive oil). It's the dinner of champions.

So Elaine says as she bites into a gooey, yet crunchy, slice of garlic bread, "Oh, you used sourdough. Awesome." And without thinking, I say, "Yeah, I was going for more of an Italian-American aesthetic more than a true old country meal. You'd never get spaghetti and meatballs in Tuscany and the Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana." I mean, duh, right? "The spaghetti was not even close to al dente. This is total East Coast quasi-Italian fuggetaboutit pasta. The Lambrusco? The Gabbiano Chianti? We might as well be eating in Bridgeport."

Everyone looks at me, speechless, and I quickly realize that I sound like a complete jackhole.

I try to play it off like I have too much time and too much broadband on my hands but the damage is done. I sound like a foodie. Horror of horrors. After everyone leaves, I look in the mirror. Am I a foodie? To quote Charlie Sheen's character in Wall Street, "Who am I?"

Why do I cringe whenever someone says, "Oh, Marty's a total foodie?" Because I don't want to be that guy. The guy who asks the butcher at Von's where their Porterhouse steaks were sourced from. The guy who asks to speak to the sommelier instead of trusting the wait staff with the wine list. The guy who uses terms like "wait staff" instead of "waiter" or "waitress."

If only I had done a little more research in planning this meal and I would have discovered that Frank Shorter won marathon gold at the '72 Olympics, where he snacked on M&Ms and beer beforehand. I could have saved myself a lot of embarrassment (and cooking time) by serving that menu. But did Shorter eat peanut M&Ms or plain? And the beer: was it made in the Pilsner Brauart-style, as the Olympics were in Munich that year? Or was it a bottom-fermented ale in the British style? Or was it a wild yeast lambic? Yeah. I guess I am that guy.

At Last, Pizza - Part 1

Quick garden update: Just wanted to show off the front EarthBoxes as I didn’t include photos in the previous post. They’re doing great guns relative to the DIY boxes thanks to better sunlight and that they were planted earlier. It couldn’t possibly be that their patented design is superior to zip tie and hacksaw jobs. You don’t need to know that two of the DIY plants have already died. See, they were just genetically weak varieties. Yeah. Future marinara Not yet Big Boy Anyhow, I’ve been meaning to do a post about making pizza and I keep putting it off because it’s such an expansive topic so I thought the best way to tackle this is in stages. We’ll start off with the dough. I know everyone says that it’s all about the water, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the flour, the salt, the kneading, the yeast, the proofing, the olive oil and whether Mercury is in retrograde or not are more important factors than the water. I’m not saying that water isn’t a factor, but there are so many other obstacles working against the home cook than the mineral content of your water. As an aside, there was an interesting experiment about water and pizza crust done on the Food Network show, “Food Detectives.” Compelling stuff but if you make pizza in a toaster oven with Bisquick and Velveeta, it ain’t gonna be good just because you used Manhattan tap. Over the past year and a half, I’ve experimented making dozens of pizzas with good ol’ L.A. municipal and I think it’s tasty stuff. And my pizza making skills are developing nicely, though a friend of mine said, “Man, that reminds me of when I worked in a pizzeria. 160 pizzas a day.” Basically John made more pizzas in a day than I’ve made in 18 months. Only 9,935 hours to go until pizza mastery! I was always wary of making pizza from scratch because I thought my kneading skills were sub par. My bread was always dense and crumbly and the dough was tough to handle. Once I got a Kitchen-Aid standing mixer with a dough hook I thought all my worries would be over. But it turns out my problem was, in fact, with the water - quantity, not quality. I may still be a shoddy kneader but my dough just wasn’t wet enough. It's got to be like sloppy, sticks-to-everything wet; dough that's a couple ounces of Evian short of being batter. It's a quality that I couldn't grasp in a recipe or a cookbook. It wasn't until I make several botched batches until I got a feel for the dough. Which sounds horribly wax on/wax off New Age-y, but...there you go. And because flour types vary and most recipes use volume measurements instead of weight, no recipe is going to get the same texture every time. You just have to play around until you get it. If you think, "This is way too gooey to be right," then you're probably there. Now let me explain that my method is one that I sort of made up (as opposed to all my other meticulously researched recipes). I’m pretty positive that this is not how they do it at Domino’s, but it’s yielded me consistent Neapolitan-ish crusts. I take a plastic tub and add about six cups of flour. That’s enough for about eight 10” pizzas, which is a lot, but you can keep the extra in the fridge where it will get more flavorful as the yeast autolyzes or you can also freeze the extra balls. Then, I take a cup and a half of hot tap water – about 100 degrees – and add a tablespoon of dry yeast and a teaspoon of sugar and let that proof for a few minutes on its own. If you’re not using bread flour, which has more gluten in it, then you’ll want to get some wheat gluten from the market. It’s the gluten that gives bread its chewy texture whereas cake flour has very little gluten, thus making delicate and tender cakes. I got a bag of Bob’s Red Mill at Whole Foods for like seven bucks. A 22 ounce bag will last for a zillion pizzas. That's right, a zillion. Back to the plastic tub: pour in the yeast, add two tablespoons of kosher salt (only one if it’s table salt) and stir it with a big spoon until it’s uniformly mixed. It should be wet and sticky. You might have to get a hand in there to get the dry bits at the bottom but you don’t need to knead just yet. Once it’s mixed, put a towel on top and let it sit for a couple of hours. A word on kneading: I heard this guy on the radio a few months ago going on about no-knead bread and how kneading is totally unnecessary. I tried it. It kinda sucked. But then as I’m writing this, I'm noodling around the Internets thinking that maybe I didn't do it right. I’m seeing that even the great Harold McGee subscribes to this method. Wow. And they even say that the secret is “to make a very wet dough.” I was just about to go into what bull crap this is but I guess I’m wrong and I’ve kind of been doing this method all along except with extraneous kneading. Huh. Wonder what I did wrong the time I tried it? I’m a jerk. Before After (forgot to rotate camera. Doh!) Back to me and my stupid kneaded dough. After a couple of hours on the counter, the dough will have more than doubled in size. Toss this lump into the mixer (or not, apparently), slap on the dough hook, add around three tablespoons of olive oil and let it knead on low for about ten minutes (or zero minutes. Damn you, McGee!). It should come together into silky skinned blob. Before needless kneading Beautified by superfluous dough swirling Pull it out, roll it into a fat worm shape and cut it into eight pieces. Each should weigh around 200 grams, which will give you a modestly sized, thin crusted pizza. Look out for that knife! Oh, the humanity! At this point, you get to the storage phase. I will just toss each lump into its own sealed plastic container and then stack them in the fridge and have pizza every day for a week and a day. Just make sure the container is big enough to accommodate the dough’s expansion as it ferments. As the days go by, the dough develops a more yeasty, bready flavor, which is a good thing. I just pull a ball out of the fridge, give it a couple kneads to make it uniform and then let it sit for a couple of hours with the container inverted on top of it so it doesn’t dry out. If you want to toss the dough in the freezer, that works, too. I use Ziploc bags so they will expand if the dough expands. I also suck out all the air (yes, with my lips) to help prevent freezer burn. Who needs a sous-vide machine? So that’s the first part of the pizza making process. Your results may vary. Heck, the crust is the most important part, as far as I’m concerned. Just like the Sushi Nazi insists that the rice is the most important part of sushi, a pizza with a bad crust sucks no matter what you put on it. Which is why I don’t understand the appeal of Casa Bianca, which many hail as the best pizza in L.A. It’s literally a block from my house and I almost never go there because the crust is like stiff cardboard. I eat it maybe a couple times a year and even with their excellent homemade sausage on it, it's kinda meh. Yet people line up every night for hours. I just don’t get it. If only they made it with New York water... Also how serial killers store body parts

My Victory Garden

O.K., it’s been awhile since I wrote anything but I’m back and with a purpose. I’ve got tons of things to talk about from molecular gastronomy to sustainable eating to Mini Sirloin Burgers. But today I’m all gung ho about my upcoming bounty from Mother Nature. In the past, I’ve had mixed successes with my gardening endeavors. When I lived in a crack house (or so my friends called it), I had a huge harvest of tomatoes in my otherwise barren backyard. In my current, less crack-y house, I’ve had more misses than hits despite two raised beds full of expensive soil. One of the problems is that the backyard is on the north side of the house and surrounded by tall trees so it gets somewhat limited sun. But mostly, I would get lazy about watering because I don’t spend a lot of time in the backyard. I tried to do a drip system but it was pretty shoddy. As a result, my tomatoes tended to shrivel up and yield only a couple of tough skinned fruit. The only thing that flourishes is arugula in the spring because it’s basically a tasty weed. So this year, what with it being a drought year, I was hesitant to plant anything. But then my sisters gave me an Earthbox. I kind of dismissed it as a plasticky, faux-terracotta planter, but it’s actually a pretty clever hydroponic system. Basically, you have a reservoir of water at the bottom of a planter and two plugs of soil are dipped in it so it wicks up the water to the rest of the soil. It doesn’t waterlog the plant roots, you don’t need water it very often and the soil moistness stays at a pretty constant level. Plus it has a plastic covering on the top of the soil so you don’t get weeds or lose excess water from evaporation. I got totally excited about it so I bought two more boxes. The problem is that you can only grow two tomato plants per box and they cost $55 apiece, not including soil and seedlings. You can reuse them so it’ll probably pay off in the long run but it’s still pricey. Thus I did the logical thing and did a Google search for DIY Earthboxes. Turns out there are tons of designs out there from fellow nerds who have created whole urban rooftop farms based on this type of planter. Basically, you just take a plastic bin and rig up some sort of platform for the soil so you can maintain a water reservoir underneath. I found one design that looked pretty sturdy and clever involving using a plastic grid on some PVC tubes. I decided that bigger was better so I used two 30 gallon bins where I could plant three tomato plants per bin. I’m really happy with how they turned out but they’re a little too voluminous and it seems like the water is having trouble reaching the shorter roots. It shouldn’t be a problem as the tomato roots grow deeper, but I should have used a smaller bin. Plus, it was kind of a pain in the ass to make. Lots of power tools and sawing and flying shards of plastic. And the cost per box was about $20-25 per bin. I need them to be cheaper if I want to this on any sort of scale. But all in all I’m still really happy about the finished product. Please ignore the surrounding dirt and dead weeds. So I planted a dozen tomatoes, everything from Early Girl to Bigger Boy to Arkansas Traveler to Momotaro. Nothing crazy exotic; I just want big yields. But I still was thinking about more planting. So I went for a simpler design that involves fewer parts and easier assembly using 18-gallon bins. It works out to be about $10 per finished bin so it’s more economical. However, the build is kind of flimsy since all the parts don’t really fit together snugly. I think it’s still going to work but it’s just kinda inelegant. In those I planted squashes, melons and eggplants. I'm not what you would call "handy." But I did create a clog-free/mosquito-free overflow spout. We’ll see how this summer’s harvest goes. If all goes according to plan, next year I’m going to take out the raised beds and replace them with rows of plastic bins. Won’t be the prettiest solution but if it means having low-maintenance vegetables year round, then I don’t care. Eggplant in the back, zucchini in the front. Ooh, one more thing: I was listening to some woman on the radio talking about edible landscapes and so I pulled out the decorative plants in the front of my house and planted herbs instead: parsley, cilantro, two types of thyme, two types of sage, lemongrass, epazote and bunch of basil plants. Again, not very pretty but as long as they grow, I don’t give a crap. I will post updates as the summer goes on.