The Simplest Summer Dish: Ham and Fruit.Rustic tarts made with summer's last peaches, fall's first apples, and virtually any other fruit are almost too easy From Root Vegetables to Rich, Simple Soups: A MethodДЄ slow braise of vegetables with water and butter is the key to making dense, smooth Root Vegetable Crema.Try chocolaty pudding with an undercurrent of malted milk can be riffed on to create endless variations with Cognac, paprika, bacon fat, or whatever else your chocoholic heart desires Take a hint from Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson and try making this dense, chocolaty dessert with a bit of malt powder A Malted Milk Chocolate Pudding to Drive the Blues Away.But like this classic pairing of prunes and Armagnac, they needn't be much work. Prunes in French Brandy: An Easy, Flavorful DIY Gift.The Stuff of Life: Jasper Conran Porcelain and Other Amazon FindsДЄ: much more than just books, music, and electronics.Somehow, several pieces of cheap furniture look more expensive than one-and other tips The Stuff of Life: Stylish Improvisations With IKEA Furniture.Concrete Poured Into Ant Colony Reveals Insect MegalopolisДЄ video from Ants: Nature's Secret Power shows off the complicated, seemingly human abilities of non-human builders.Gary Chang uses sliding walls, a tiny apartment, and creativity to force us to rethink what a home can look like An Architect Squeezes 24 Rooms Into 344 Square Feet (Video).Stylish mirrors, planters, the Stockholm lamp, and a customizable snowflake textile that you can use for almost anything The Stuff of Life: IKEA Lamps and More Good-Value Housewares.

Max Lamb's Striking, Sand-and-Packing-Foam FurnitureДЄn artist uses a beach, pewter, and the raw material of coffee cups to make everything from stools to library shelves.

Barcelona Apartment Packs a Whole House Into 258 Square FeetДЄ penthouse resembling a giant puzzle box, with compartments filled with a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, and more.

Her varied work has been the laboratory for the themes she writes and lectures about: improvising as an essential operating principle cultivating resourcefulness and your inner artist design, style, and food and anything that is cost-effective, resourceful, and outside the box. Sally has worked as a journalist, editor, stylist, lecturer, restaurant chef, teacher, and small-space consultant, and once wrangled 600 live snails for the photographer Irving Penn. She has won numerous awards, including four James Beard awards, for her books and magazine writing. It's been called a 'zeitgeist-perfect website.' She is a regular contributor to public radio's The Splendid Table and the author of the best-selling cookbooks The Improvisational Cookand A New Way to Cook, which was recently named one of the best books of the decade by The Guardian. Sally Schneider is the founder of The Improvised Life, a lifestyle blog that inspires you to devise, invent, create, make it up as you go along, from design and cooking to cultivating the creative spirit.

Furniture with secret compartments