Product Review Monday

This week's book review is entitled "It Takes a Village Idiot" by Jim Mullen.

I'm a sucker for urban-to-rural migration stories. Bonus points if they're funny. Mullen's book is both.

Per the Amazon description:

Millions of people dream of abandoning the city routine for a simple country life. Jim Mullen was not one of them. He loved his Manhattan existence: parties, openings, movie screenings. He could walk to hundreds of restaurants, waste entire afternoons at the Film Forum, people-watch from his window. Then, one day, calamity.

His wife quits smoking and buys a weekend house in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York – in a tiny town diametrically opposed to Manhattan in every way. Slowly, however, the man who once boasted, "Life is just a cab away," begins to warm to the place – manure and compost and strangers who wave and all – and to embrace the kind of life that once gave him the shakes.

From the sneering contempt he once felt for rural life to the gradual change it took to wholeheartedly embrace it, Mullen's book is refreshingly sarcastic and great fun. Highly recommended.

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This week's product recommendation is a follow-up to last week's yogurt-making items: A yogurt strainer.

Once the yogurt is made in the incubator, it's often too liquidy for my taste. A few hours in  this strainer does wonders to thicken it up. This is before:

And this is after:

Here's how much liquid came out:

I used to do the whole suspend-from-a-pillowcase routine, and this is vastly easier (and more sanitary).

The only codicil is the mesh inside the strainer is very delicate, so it must be carefully hand-washed (and never put in a dishwasher). Beyond that, it works beautifully.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)

(Don't forget: A complete list of all our book and product recommendations are linked here and at the upper-right column of the blog.)