At first blush, the counter before me has all the makings of a cooking class: kitchen scale, olive oil, Hershey’s cocoa mix, 6-pound tub of Crisco. But the latex gloves and safety goggles suggest I ...

Did you know that instead of discarding the ashes from your fireplace, you can actually use them to make an ingredient for a ...

SCOTT -- The first thing one learns when making soap is that there is a lot of stirring involved. And trickling. And waiting. And hoping not to blow anything up. But, boy, does it smell good. An eager ...

The perfect bar of soap can be made right at home and is crafted with the natural, nourishing ingredients your skin craves. One of the easiest ways to make DIY soap is with the co ...

Soap-makers love to tell the story of how ancient Romans first “discovered” soap by burning animal sacrifices on Mount Sapo, and how the creeks at the bottom of that mythological mountain were the ...

Today I put a thin layer of wood ashes over my vegetable garden, trusting that the potash will enrich the soil with the winter rains. Our Arkansas ancestors did the same thing, but generations of ...

Readers, this is the fourth of 12 basic homestead skills we’ll be presenting every month throughout 2019 from Kimberlee Bastien’s new book, 52 Homestead Skills. We invite you to join Kimberlee and her ...

Our Arkansas ancestors did the same thing, but generations of Arkansas women also used wood ashes to make lye soap. So far, my wife has refused to revive that tradition. Making soap is an ancient ...

Back in the 1960s one of the hottest shows on television was the Beverly Hillbillies. The Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family from the Ozarks, become wealthy when oil is found on their land. This ...