Mowers

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 161

Lawn mower, weed whacker hybrid

DR Trimmer Mower

Twenty years ago when I moved from the city to the rural acreage I now inhabit, I started researching all kinds of tools. I came across a small ad for a strange-looking contraption called a DR Trimmer/Mower. Picture a rotary lawn mower with an oversize weed whacker instead of a blade, and you’ll have it. I ordered one and was VERY glad I did. Nothing else comes close in keeping vegetation under control, even in tight spots like under fences. If I could only have one yard-maintenance tool, this would be it, hands down. In a pinch, it can even serve as a conventional lawn mower.

My original DR served me faithfully, and in fact still works well though it’s showing its age. But recently the manufacturer made an offer I couldn’t refuse to us early adopters of the original, so I updated to this new model. It has a few nice refinements but isn’t fundamentally different from my 1992 model. Highly recommended for people with lots of weeds, grass, and even brambles to keep under control.

Tips: the optional bigger engine in the 8.75 model is nice but not essential. Electric start is an optional luxury; my engine starts easily with a pull cord. I don’t think the self-propelled option is worth the money and added weight and complexity (YMMV). Don’t be afraid to experiment with different cutting line sizes and types: the stock line lasts a long time but I don’t think cuts as well as Oregon’s Nylium Starline. — Rob Lewis

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Easiest hand mower

Brill Push Mower

When I first realized that my housemates were serious about me using a push mower to cut our yard, I was a little skeptical. Eventually I was won over by the environmental benefits and the sense of accomplishment that I received from using a “reel mower”. The first mower we purchased is literally called the “Prison reel mower” and I wouldn’t recommend it. The Brill Luxus 38 Reel Mower on the other hand is a sweet piece of engineering. It is very light at 17 pounds, weather resistant, and has variable height ranges. It feels good in your hands and seems very well designed. Now that I use it, I wouldn’t even consider buying a gas or electric powered mower for an average size yard. But let me warn you, using a manual mower is physically much harder, takes more time, and is very difficult if not impossible with tall grass (which means regular mowing). Whether you choose to look at that as an environmentally friendly and money-saving workout or a punishment is up to you. — Patrick Chen

For the past 20 years I’ve cut my lawn with a hand reel mower. Reel mowers are wonderful — when they are new. The major drawback is not the mild workout, but keeping the blades sharp over time. You can’t sharpen the helical blades of a reel mower without a special jig (at least I can’t). Yet getting it sharpened at the shop will set you back $50 each time. That adds up real fast. And if a reel mower isn’t razor sharp (unlike a power one) cutting the grass does turn into punishment. That’s why the Brill is so interesting. Because its blades do not touch the cutter bar, it claims the average interval for resharpening is 8 years. I don’t know anyone who has had one that long (German-made Brill is big in Europe but new in the US), but in theory this could prolong the duration between sharpenings and change the equation for keeping a manual reel mower going. That is good news because I’ve found that I can cut our small irregular lawn just as fast, and with no more sweat, using a sharp push mower. — KK

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Leaf solution

Cyclone Rake

I have about an acre of land with a lot of mature oak and hickory trees. They drop a lot of leaves each fall. I got the cyclone rake about 11-years ago, and it is just amazing. In one full day I can clean the entire property of leaves and be ready for winter. I’ll fill it 40 or so times throughout the day and emptying is reasonable. I make a leaf pile in a back area of the property for compost.

The 5-HP engine pulls the leaves from the mower discharge and grinds them further into small bits. One time using the attachment hose I sucked up a small block of wood with no damage to the impeller. However, there was a minor crack in the housing which I was able to patch with a short bolt and a couple of fender washers. Hickory nuts, sticks, pine cones and leaves get sucked up without issue.

Before it was several days of hard labor hauling load after load in a garden wagon, the cyclone rake was worth every penny. — John Dyer

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The best electric trimmer

Stihl FSE 60 Trimmer

I have used several borrowed models of both electric and gas powered trimmers. The electric plug-in Stihl FSE 60 is my favorite by far. It is quiet and strong. The only concern is that when used continuously for half an hour or more, it gets very hot. I find that it is better to use it in shorter intervals.

It works better than other models and is easier to clean. While I have to wear earplugs when using it, it is far from the teeth-shaking monstrosities that disturb the neighborhood. I couldn’t see going to a gas powered trimmer unless I were very far away from an electric outlet. It is a bit more expensive than big box electric trimmers, but way better. The only reason to buy something like a Black & Decker or McCullough electric model is if you were only going to do a few light jobs one season and never use the thing again.

I was surprised that this dealer distributed model was so much better than the big-box online-marketed alternatives. In value, it’s one of my best tool purchases ever. —Bill Owens

I initially bought my Stihl FSE-60 reading a review at Consumer Search. The Stihl FSE-60 is not available at big boxes. They are only available at stores who function as local Stihl dealers. Presumably, this makes customer service a more personal experience and does a positive service to those smaller hardware stores trying to survive the big box onslaught. In any case, I bought mine a year ago in Kearny, NJ.

The balance is a bit weird. In your hands it has a bias to the rear, which is helpful, but necessary because it is powerful. VERY powerful. It uses a two-string configuration, and it’s a bump-feed. I found it to be efficient and effective. I may have only bumped it twice during a day’s use, whereas the Black and Decker it replaced was more bump than trim. It’s heavy, but not so heavy as to make it a terrible chore. It’s solid and quiet for a trimmer. Cleaning is easy after use as well. I suppose in comparison to the old B&D I had it’s superior, but I don’t do enough yard work to say definitively that it’s the best. I like it a lot, and I’m glad I bought it from a local dealer. — Christopher Wanko

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Most efficient mower

European Scythe

Light, sharp, ergonomic and quiet, this European scythe is not what you’ll find in your local hardware store. The handle (snath) is custom-fit, so you stand comfortably upright while ‘sweeping’ weeds and grass down with ease. Potential uses range from small-acreage hay cutting to weed and brush clearing in variable terrain. I use it as a weed-whacker replacement on my long driveway. You can talk to people and hear birds while ‘weed-whacking’. Pretty sweet. The price for a new one puts it up there with gas-powered weed-whackers, but I find the experience much more enjoyable. Honestly, I believe you can clear more area with less sweat using a European scythe than a powered string trimmer. The key is the light weight of the tool and the sharpness of the blade.

Most people are stunned when they see me take down grass or weed stalks with little more than a gentle nick from the blade. Furthermore, getting it custom fit will make it probably the most pleasant-to-use garden tool you’ll ever have. (I’m unusually tall, so maybe this impresses me more than it would a 5’9” man, for example). Here’s how a European scythe and string-trimmer weed whacker tally up to each other:

Scythe Pros

Scythe is lighter. Likely to be considerably more ergonomic. Quiet. Free from power source. Stalks intact, no pulverizing of plant-matter.

Scythe Cons

Must keep the blade *sharp* (The $170 kit comes with peening jig and whetstone). Sometimes the direction of approach makes a particular weed hard to cut. You won’t be able to pulverize a weed in between rocks or hard things. You must not let the blade hit hard things like rocks or metal.

For those considering a scythe, be sure to get the European style and help end this sad era that has had Americans breaking their backs with horribly un-ergonomic, heavy scythes. For instance, European blades weigh 15 oz, while American style ones weigh twice as much, at 30 oz! Besides the weight difference, the tang on the American style is not angled to help you cut the stalks. The blades are thicker and not as sharp, etc. You’ll find a lot more info on why and how to use this tool at Scythe Supply. — James Zimmerman

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

10/27/25

Podcast Magic/Snap-on phone charger/OpenWebcam Database

Recomendo - issue #485

Podcast note service

Here’s a new hack for me. I occasionally want to capture a moment I heard while a podcast is playing on my phone. I’d like to keep that passage as a note. So when I hear something I want to keep I yell to my phone “Siri (or Google), take a screenshot.” It captures an image of my podcast app (Overcast) with a timestamp showing. Later I forward that image to a certain email and within a minute I get back the text transcript of the previous 90 seconds, which I can file. This service, called Podcast Magic, requires no app, no sign-in, no ongoing subscription. In the beginning they are free; at some point they ask for a one-time $20 lifetime fee if you use it a lot. — KK

Snap-on phone charger

While exploring Berlin, my phone battery was draining fast from constant Google Maps use and museum audio guides. I had a portable charger and cable, but they were awkward to use while walking. I stepped into Berlin’s Apple Store and walked out with an Anker 621 MagGo magnetic portable charger. This slim 5,000mAh power bank magnetically snaps to newer iPhones. No more fumbling with cables and separate battery packs. It warms slightly during use, but the convenience far outweighs this minor issue. Perfect for travel, it slips easily into any pocket. — MF

Directory of open webcams

Directories like the OpenWebcam Database always help me reset between tasks. This website has more than 2,000 live cameras streaming daily from over 50 countries, all searchable by category. You’ll find natural landscapes, airports, construction sites, and warehouses like this one. I love these windows into everyday life around the world. — CD

Innovative drama

Adolescence, on Netflix, is one of the most intense, surprising, and satisfying dramas I’ve ever seen. It deserves all the Emmys it’s won. The story explores the consequences of crime on an accused family. Filmed in northern England, you should keep the subtitles on. The drama’s self-imposed, innovative constraint of containing no cuts, no editing (!), for each of its four hours, means that each episode is like a theatrical performance but incredibly intimate via a camera. It is mesmerizing and heartbreakingly memorable. Highly recommended. — KK

Fast AI transcription

Scriber Pro is a $3.99 macOS app that delivers incredibly fast, private audio recording transcription. It processes everything locally on my Mac. Unlike cloud services charging $10+ monthly, Scriber Pro requires no subscriptions and never uploads your files. It supports all common audio/video formats and has multiple export options. — MF

Curated design finds

I’m enjoying Curated Supply’s once-a-week email because I get to discover beautiful tools and objects selected by Justin, the curator, who prioritizes design and utility over disposable consumer goods. While there are always links to buy, I don’t feel like that’s the purpose of this newsletter. It’s an appreciation of craftsmanship, timeless design, and beautiful form. — CD

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10/26/25

Digital Entry Europe/Text Scammers/Mumbai’s 2nd Airport

Nomadico issue #176

EES Border Checks Starting Now in Europe

I’ve mentioned Europe’s new entry and border system a few times now but this week marked the start of the official roll-out, with all countries on board by April. On the plus side, immigration lines should move faster and be more like Global Entry ones once they work the kinks out and passport stamping will disappear. On the downside, they’ll know exactly how long you’ve been on the continent, plus your movements will be tracked unless you go all Jason Bourne with multiple passports. See the details here.

Text Scams and “Pig Butchering”

I linked to a bizarre story a few months ago about a whole city in Burma built by Chinese internet scammers, using forced labor, and Planet Money highlighted another one in Cambodia in this story: The Secret World Behind Those Scammy Text Messages. “Does anyone really fall for those?” you may be wondering, and the answer is a big yes, for big losses. This week the US Department of Justice seized $15 billion in Bitcoin from just one of the perpetrators running a big “pig butchering” scheme.

Mumbai Has a New Airport

After 20 years of setbacks and diversions, Mumbai’s overtaxed airport in India is getting a sibling. This will hopefully take some pressure off by moving some of the 54 million annual arrivals to the city. The opening is just phase one, with two airlines committed to flying there, but more should follow as it expands to multiple terminals and runways. See more info here on Navi Airport (NMI).

World’s Coolest Neighborhoods?

Each year Time Out publishes its list of the world’s coolest neighborhoods. No matter how well-traveled you are, you’ll find plenty you’ve never heard of, much less experienced. (I’ve only been in three on this year’s list.) It’s clearly written by people with feet on the ground though, unlike many similar round-ups from big publications, and isn’t influenced by who bought advertising that month. It’s a good list for nomads looking to find the local vibe since the purpose is to highlight “places that represent the soul of our cities, while maintaining their own unique local character that draws people in to live, work and play.”

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

10/23/25

What’s in my NOW? — Aishwarya Goel

issue #227

I am a founder building in ML Infrastructure space, currently living in San Francisco originally from Delhi, India. I love to write, play poker, escape into nature. Learn more about me here. — Ash

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PHYSICAL

• Philips Signe Gradient Floor Lamp: This lamp has become essential to my daily routine. Whether I’m doing yoga, working, or settling in for a movie night, I can adjust the colors to match my mood and the moment. Beyond the practical lighting benefits, it adds a beautiful aesthetic touch to my living room that I never get tired of.
• DASH Mini Maker Electric Round Griddle: Mornings used to be a scramble, especially when trying to cook a proper breakfast. This little griddle changed everything for my morning egg routine. It cooks consistently perfect eggs in less time than traditional methods, and I can have them ready by the time my coffee finishes brewing. Simple but life changing.
• Uniqlo Hoodie: Living in San Francisco means dealing with weather that can shift dramatically within hours. After trying countless options, Uniqlo hoodies have become my go-to solution. They’re comfortable enough for sunny afternoons yet cozy enough for sudden wind and fog. The fit is perfect, and they’ve become my reliable comfort layer no matter what the day brings.

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DIGITAL

• MyNetDiary App: I’ve logged into this app every single day since January, tracking my calorie deficit and macronutrients. What keeps me consistent is the clean, intuitive design that makes daily logging feel effortless rather than burdensome. I can monitor my intermittent fasting, water intake, calories burned, and steps all in one place. The AI feature for analyzing restaurant meals (a premium feature I gladly pay for) has been incredibly helpful for maintaining accuracy when eating out.
• Bear Blog: After trying numerous blogging platforms that either couldn’t scale or were overly complicated, I discovered Bear Blog early this year. It’s transformed my relationship with writing—I’m more consistent than I’ve ever been. The simple UX makes everything memorable and easy, while the discovery feed introduces me to incredible writing from other users. I upgraded to a paid plan to use my custom domain, and now it feels like my own little corner of the internet that I genuinely enjoy working on each weekend.

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INVISIBLE

Excellence is the capacity to take pain. — James Dyson, founder, Dyson.

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10/22/25

A Wild Swan / The Creative Cottage

Issue No. 89

A WILD SWAN PLUCKS AT FAMILIAR FAIRY TALES WITH A VOICE THAT’S SARDONIC, SALACIOUS, OR BRIMMING WITH EMPATHY

A Wild Swan and Other Tales
by Michael Cunningham (author) and Yuko Shimizu (illustrator)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2015, 144 pages, 6.4 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches

Buy on Amazon

A few pages into A Wild Swan and Other Tales we’re stopped short by a narrator who is either supremely cynical or just brutally honest: “End of story. ‘Happily ever after’ fell on everyone like a guillotine’s blade.” But that abrupt point of stoppage, it turns out, is the vulnerable moment onto which Michael Cunningham can graft fresh possibilities. In this case, he builds on Hans Christian Andersen’s version of “The Wild Swans” by imagining a trajectory for the least fortunate swan-brother, the one whose incomplete coat of nettles transformed him back into a man but left him with a “linty, dispiriting” wing where his arm should be.

In this collection of eleven stories, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Hours plucks and tweaks at familiar fairy tales in a variety of ways – through POV changes, time shifts, reimagined elements, and most especially an irresistible voice that’s by turns sardonic, salacious, or brimming with empathy. “Little Man” gives us the motivations behind Rumpelstiltskin’s baby mania. “Jacked” believably paints the beanstalk climber as dumb and lucky. “The Monkey’s Paw” locates another haunting angle on W.W. Jacobs’ tale about the cruel side of wishes.

Based only on its literary merits, A Wild Swan would already be worth your time – but this book is special. Masterful pen-and-ink illustrations, drop caps, endpapers, and cover art by award-winning illustrator Yuko Shimizu elevate A Wild Swan to exquisite object. Where your stereotypical fairy tale collection might boast lush colors, ornate bindings, and metallic accents, A Wild Swan is elegant. Restrained, but not spare, its quality emerges in sedulous attention to detail. White space explodes into knots of intricate line on carefully composed pages. A swan’s silhouette stands out in relief on the embossed cover. Cunningham’s canny, contemporary voice is made more timeless with decorations that hearken back to, but don’t simply imitate, famed illustrators from Walter Crane to Harry Clarke.

I’ve loved Shimizu’s work since a friend pointed me to her public page on Facebook a year ago. (Come for the behind-the-scenes illustration techniques, stay for the adorable Chihuahua pics.) A Wild Swan and Other Tales gives the Japanese-born artist the chance to shine in tandem with a talented major author secure in his powers. – Lisa Barrow

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THE CREATIVE COTTAGE – SMALL SPACES REHABILITATED BY ADVENTUROUS HOMEOWNERS WITH VISION

The Creative Cottage
by Steve Gross and Susan Daley
Gibbs Smith
2016, 160 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 0.8 inches

Buy on Amazon

The Creative Cottage features 13 fabulous small abodes that house collections of many types. Each chapter highlights a cottage that has been rehabilitated by adventurous and artistic homeowners with vision. The cottages are art themselves, with thoughtful architecture, and they are filled with wonderful upcycled, found, and renovated components, both antique and modern blended together, feeling curated and purposeful as opposed to random and slap-dash. The creative souls behind them are artists, pickers, and normal folks too, who just needed someplace more special to live.

The text reads like a menu in a fancy restaurant, in which every ingredient has a special designation, treatment, and provenance. The painting from the lobby of an old theater in upstate New York. A salvaged stained-glass window. A zinc rain barrel holding antique canes. A soapstone sink from a high school lab. A red vinyl 1940s barbershop chair. Striped tea towels hung on a twig. A 1930s school locker sponge, painted to look like wood. A bed platform made from painted license plates and metal Alabama road signs. Sculptures fashioned from beaver-chewed wood.

Even if you’re not planning on renovating the shotgun shack on the back forty or the tiny abandoned building by the edge of the local harbor, the photographs are fun to look at. Finding each ingredient discussed within the accompanying photographs is like playing Where’s Waldo with 19th-century furniture and Barbershop ads from Nigeria. This might be a book for you if you enjoy seeing how others live, are interested in architecture and interior design, or need some inspiration to create something beautiful in whatever space surrounds you. – Aaron Downey

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

10/21/25

Dehydrators

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 186

Affordable dehydrator

Nesco Food Dehydrator

The Nesco Food Dehydrator is a simple, affordable, and well-built tool for drying foods quickly and thoroughly. Though not an every-day-use item for most people, it becomes absolutely essential when it is needed.

I recently went on a weekend trip hunting for morels and returned with far more than I could eat. Luckily, this dehydrator made short work of the excess. The stackable trays easily fit 60 whole small morels and many of the larger ones which I’d cut in half. Altogether, I fit about three pounds of mushrooms in fivetrays.

Like the previously reviewed Excalibur Food Dehydrator, the Nesco model has a temperature control, fan, and heating unit. The Nesco’s heating unit is built into the top (cheaper models heat bottom-up) that sits atop the stack of trays and blows air through a central column allowing for better distribution and airflow throughout.

I used a temperature of 110F when drying morels, and left them to dry over night for about 8 hours. Since any moisture can lead to a ruined batch, I made sure to let them dry out for a little longer than necessary. They were perfectly dried the next morning, and ready for storage in an airtight container.

While I have mainly used this model for mushrooms, the large trays and variable temperature dial (95-160F) allows for a wide range of dried foods to be made. This particular model is also expandable to 12 trays if you need to dry a truly astonishing amount of food.

The Nesco, when compared with the Excalibur, has the benefit of being nearly $125 dollars cheaper combined with a smaller (though expandable) footprint, a relatively-quiet fan, and similarly adjustable temperature. — JC

I have experience with both the Excalibur and the more recently-reviewed Nesco, a smaller and less expensive dehydrator. The Excalibur is a superior product if you are a heavy user and tend to be drying large batches of produce at once. It has quite a bit more capacity due to the design (no center hole and square racks make a big difference). The horizontal airflow system does dry large batches more uniformly. Although you can add racks to the Nesco, it dries less efficiently, and once you add in the cost of extra racks you are approaching the same price as the Excalibur.

Having said that, the price on the Nesco has really dropped and the top-down heater/blower is a nice upgrade over the older bottom-fan models. Heck, you could almost get three of them for the same price as an Excalibur, although that would take up a lot of storage space and use more energy to power 3 units. — Oliver Hulland

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DIY dried goods

Excalibur Food Dehydrator

I’ve been using this 9-tray dehydrator once or twice a week for the last three years to make dried fruit, veggies, jerky, dog treats, and dried bread crumbs. Other uses include re-crisping crackers, cookies, and chips, and thoroughly drying wet photographs and flowers.

Overall, this is truly the most flexible dehydrator I’ve found. The thermostat is adjustable (85-145F), so you can customize your dehydrating. The removable trays allow you to experiment with sizes, quantities and varieties of foods sorted by temperature range. If you group shorter-term items by tray, you just remove those trays first, then keep the remaining items/trays inside a bit longer.

Other units heat unevenly from the bottom, require you to manually rotate trays, and — in the case of cheaper units — don’t let you control the temperature. Along with a thermostat, the Excalibur has a fan that distributes heat more evenly; it also features a timer, so it will automatically turn off at a desired time whether you’re around or not.

All of the dehydrators I’ve used generate noise (I now use my Ronco and Home Essentials models exclusively for making dog treats). Since the Excalibur isn’t quiet, I keep it in our craft room. It’s very easy to clean. I enjoy not throwing out spoiled food. We always have healthy snack alternatives for us and our grandkids — and they enjoy contributing to the process as much as they eating the rewards. Ever since we moved to a property with grapevines, they’ve helped us make copious amounts of raisins.

Tips:

1) To make fruit yogurt leathers or work with items high in moisture content, you’ll need ParaFlexx non-stick drying sheets. Excalibur provides a pretty good guide on how to work with different foods.

2) If you buy direct from the manufacturer, it may be slightly more expensive, but I understand they’ll guarantee the unit for 10 years; otherwise, you can purchase a 10-year extended warranty. — Chris Lewis

I have experience with both the Excalibur and the more recently-reviewed Nesco, a smaller and less expensive dehydrator. The Excalibur is a superior product if you are a heavy user and tend to be drying large batches of produce at once. It has quite a bit more capacity due to the design (no center hole and square racks make a big difference). The horizontal airflow system does dry large batches more uniformly. Although you can add racks to the Nesco, it dries less efficiently, and once you add in the cost of extra racks you are approaching the same price as the Excalibur.

Having said that, the price on the Nesco has really dropped and the top-down heater/blower is a nice upgrade over the older bottom-fan models. Heck, you could almost get three of them for the same price as an Excalibur, although that would take up a lot of storage space and use more energy to power 3 units. — JC

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Affordable, freeze-dried goods

Dehydrated Food In Bulk

Backpackers, canoeists, campers and scouts have two basic ways to stock their food supply: classic prepackaged freeze-dried meals or building your own menu. Commercial freeze-dried camping food is expensive, limits menus choices and is hit or miss in the flavor department. Most of us have learned to shop carefully at the grocery store and put together a fairly lightweight, nutritious menu for weekend trips. But add a couple of people and extend the trip for two or three days and grocery store options get a bit heavy. Supplementing with bulk freeze dried or dehydrated food expands the choices and cuts down the packed weight while developing a tasty, nutritious menu without blowing the budget. If you are planning an extended trip, I highly recommend assembling your menu with these two suppliers in mind. — Clarke Green

Honeyville Food Products

I’ve organized six days of food for 18 people in two crews for a canoe trip (18 meals, 324 servings), which would have been impossible — or just plain expensive — had I not ordered Honeyville’s goods. They offer a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and other foodstuffs in bulk (#10 tin cans, and cases even). While a single-serving package of freeze-dried strawberries (.06 oz.) from Mountain House is $3.00 ($50.00 an ounce!), Honeyville’s #10 can of freeze-dried strawberries (6 oz.) costs just $17.00 ($2.83 an ounce). They will ship an order of any size anywhere in the continental U.S. for under five dollars — just a little more than a gallon of gas!

Harmony House Foods

Soups, vegetables, fruits and textured vegetable protein (i.e. soy-based meat substitute) in large AND smaller quantities so you customize freeze-dried meals for long, big, short and small trips. They also offer a Backpacking Kit, a pre-selected assortment of dried foods that will make a variety of dishes. Don’t miss these two very helpful PDF files: Using Dehydrated Products and a Serving Size Chart.

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

10/20/25

What’s in my NOW? — Aishwarya Goel