Category: Personal Favorites

This is not a cooking blog, though good food and alcohol are two of my passions.

As a woodworker, it makes me crazy that we don’t have a functioning wood-burning stove (this is something that will be rectified with our new place). So I use my scraps, sawdust and shavings as mulch, I burn them in our outdoor fireplace and I use them in cooking whenever I can.

Today I applied the first coat of oil to a French oak workbench for a customer and used the scraps from the piece to make one of my favorite things: a smoky tomato sauce that is fast and easy. You can use almost any wood for this.

Here’s how: Take shavings, offcuts and what-not and scatter them on some foil on your grill. Crank the grill up to high and char the shavings for 10 minutes.

Take eight or so Roma tomatoes, slice them lengthwise and put them cut-side up on a metallic vegetable steamer. Place the steamer on top of the smoldering chunks of oak, close the lid and cook them for 15 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and the skin of the tomatoes is blistered and a little charred.

Place the tomatoes in a blender and liquify them. Add 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and whatever seasoning you like. It’s ready to eat.

— Christopher Schwarz

Megan Fitzpatrick of Popular Woodworking Magazine, Andy Brownell of Brownell Furniture and I were interviewed about the state of the woodworking craft during Friday’s “Cincinnati Edition” show on WVXU-FM.

In addition to discussing how to get started in woodworking (hint: it involves a stick), we chatted about how many woodworkers think young people are interested only in their Atari 2600s and Intellivision consoles. I mean, if we can’t stop them from playing Pong, the craft will surely die.

As you might have guessed, I think this attitude is a steaming pile of Oscar Mayer.

You can listed to the show for free via this link.

The producer asked us to come back and do the show again (despite having to bleep out Megan’s potty mouth).

— Christopher Schwarz

For the last three years I’ve done an informal “gift guide” for woodworkers over at my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Unlike other gift guides, this one is not filled with high-price junk that a retailer paid me to promote.

I try to focus on smaller items that will make your life a little nicer in the shop. Stuff your kids can buy you without taking out a loan. Oh, and I own every one of these items and personally use them in my own shop.

The first entry is up now. Nine more to go. You’ll also find links there to the previous two gift guides.

— Christopher Schwarz

Joshua Klein, a woodworker and conservator in Maine, is now accepting pre-publication orders for the first issue of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, which looks to be very interesting reading.

You might have heard of Klein through his blog, The Workbench Diary, or some of the stories I’ve written about his research of Jonathan Fisher (Klein is writing a book about Fisher for us, by the way).

In addition to his conservation work, a young family, taking apart a house for later reconstruction and writing a book for us, Klein has poured an enormous amount of energy into Mortise & Tenon Magazine to make sure it is a high-quality, well-made publication.

Take a look at the table of contents for the first issue here.

Then click on the “Pre-order Now” button. The first issue is just $24 – a bargain for such a labor of love. I ordered mine as soon as I got up this morning.

Whether you like old furniture, handwork or conservation, you’ll find a lot in the first issue to love.

— Christopher Schwarz