Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 3: The Basics of Brewing...

Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 3: The Basics of Brewing:
Morning School is chugging along, and today we're moving beyond propagandizing for good coffee and getting into the nitty gritty of what to do with your high quality, fresh roasted beans. Contrary to how it might seem if you listen to many hardcore coffee geeks, brewing good cups of coffee at home doesn't have to be approached as if taking on a whole new hobby. A few basic principles will give you a toehold into almost every brew method and with just a bit of trial and error (and of course good beans) you'll discover that a great cup doesn't have to be hard to find.

Coffee, Water, Grind, and Time

Coffee brewing is essentially a "just add water" situation. The caveat is that you want to measure the amounts of coffee and water, use water at the right temperature, find the appropriate grind size, and control the amount of time that the coffee grounds and water are in contact. Every brew method recipe, whether filter style (drip machines, chemex, pour over) or immersion style (french press, eva solo, siphon) can be largely expressed within these variables.
Clean filtered water of the sort you'd happily drink is a must. Most manual brew methods will perform best at temperatures just off of a boil (~195-205F). You'll discover some coffees are more sensitive to water temperature than others—unusually dark roasts are able to tolerate much lower brewing temperatures (accounting for much of their continued popularity as the bulk of cheap automatic drip brewers tend to not get water hot enough).

Coffee to Water Ratio

Coffee nerds differ by degrees about what the most correct coffee to water ratio is, and you'll want to explore nudging your coffee dose up or down to suit your own tastes and specific gear. A good general starting point is just over 60 grams of coffee per liter of water. (Or in simple measurements: about 2 tablespoons of coffee for every 6 ounces of water.)
For those with a slightly nerdier bent for exact numbers and a full embrace of the magical metric system—in which 1 gram of water equals 1 milliliter of water—you can aim for a ratio of 1:16 or 1 gram of coffee per 16 milliliters (or grams) of water. I keep an online ratio calculator bookmarked for just this purpose. I'll make the case below for owning a good kitchen gram scale which can actually make precise manual brewing a breeze.

(Image by Jory Felice.)

Brewing Tools: An Overview

There is no one "right" way to make coffee and hundreds of devices out there to choose from. In the next lesson, we'll explore in more depth some popular brew methods, gear, and techniques.

The One Essential: The Grinder

Every coffee nerd will give you the same lecture: pre-ground coffee just doesn't cut it. The full flavor and aroma that make good coffee so intoxicating is mortally wounded when ground coffee is left to sit for long. Fancy packages, plastic pods, and inert gas flushing do very little to change this cruel fact.
Blade Grinders: The ubiquitous blade grinder works by chopping the beans, not unlike a blender, resulting in non-uniform grind size ("dust and boulders") that can lead to some over-extraction or bitterness when brewing. Most of my colleagues in the strident forefront of the coffee trade will tell you a meager blade grinder is a nonstarter, but the truth is even an imperfect fresh grind is better than buying pre-ground beans. Some brew methods are sufficiently forgiving that you can still get very nice results with cheap blade grinding. Blade grinders are easily found for well under $20 dollars and they all produce roughly similar results.
Burr Grinders: Not cheap, but far and away the best investment you can make in your coffee universe outside of buying top quality fresh roasted beans. A burr grinder crushes the beans between two sharp burrs—one stationary, one rotating—and adjusting the gap between the burrs lets you dial in a specific grind size and produce relatively uniform grinds for better extraction.
Many people make the mistake of purchasing expensive drip brewers with blue LEDs and timers and numerous buttons and then balk at dropping dough on the grinder. This is exactly backwards. A good burr grinder is a unmatchable precision tool whereas any automatic drip machine is merely a fancy way to dribble hot water on your grounds.
Best: I can't recommend enough the prosumer class grinders from Baratza. My Baratza Virtuoso is a workhorse in my kitchen, but their entire line from the entry level Encore to the espresso-grade Vario is great and Baratza's customer service has been awesome.
Pretty good: There are a number of grinders hovering around or just below the $100 range that are solid. My top pick here is probably the Capresso Infinity.
Satisfactory: These represent a big step up from a blade grinder but lack the quality of burr sets or higher torque motors of the prosumer model burr grinders. Generally closer to $40-50, and with a lot of familiar brand names from other kitchen appliances. I'm hesitant to emphatically recommend any particular model here, but I've used the basic Krups GVX Burr Grinder and it seems typical of the category.
Kind of awesome: I have a habit of collecting hand cranked burr grinders, and though a bit more work than pressing a button, they can be great for folks making one cup at a time, for camping, or for keeping in your bug-out-bag when the end times roll around. My three favorites:

• The light but tough Porlex Mini
• The affordable and elegant Hario Slim
• The classic Zassenhaus box grinder you hold between your knees

Timers, Scales, and Kettles

A timer is useful for almost every manual brew method and can even come in handy when figuring out the best grind size for automatic drip machines. Most smartphones are good for this, but if like me you prefer to check Instagram and Twitter while your coffee is brewing, then a dedicated digital count-up kitchen timer is a worthwhile investment.

The Case For a Gram Scale

A gram-accurate scale can bring some great precision into your brewing and remove some of the guesswork when pouring water from kettles. For instance, when filling a french press directly from your kettle, it can be hard to correctly eyeball where to stop pouring as wet coffee grounds bloom up with escaping gasses. A scale lets you dodge having to pre-measure your water into a kettle or fuss with finding a fill line. Just put the whole kit and caboodle of your brewing device on the scale, tare it out, and start pouring to the desired water weight (remember 1 gram = 1 milliliter).
It actually makes brewing easier. Though it might feel like adding a scale makes your morning routine into too much of a chemistry class, you'll find it actually makes the process a much more brainless and autopilot affair once you've dialed in your "recipe." Thanks to my slick looking kitchen scale I'm able to make my first cup of the morning with barely any brain activity involved.
Whether you're using precise gram scales or just simple scoops, the important thing is that you make sure your measurements are repeatable and adjustable. In most cases, if starting with a baseline brew recipe and ratio, just a few brews and a small amount of trial and error—little adjustments in grind, dose, dwell time, and a bit of technique—will get you to a reliable sweet spot. And expect to pour a few brews down the sink at first whenever introducing a new brew method to your kitchen.
In the next lesson we'll dig in on several great methods and peek into the deep rabbit hole that is home espresso.

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Tony Konecny wears a number of hats at the awesome coffee subscription service Tonx which he cofounded as part of his long crusade to bring great coffee into kitchens, cubicles, and caves. Beloved by shut-ins and coffee connoisseurs alike.
Top image remixed from etraveler, Subbotina Anna, and Oros Gabor (Shutterstock).



 

How to Deal with Negative People...

How to Deal with Negative People:
We all have negative type of people in our lives who manage to bring us down on a perfectly good day. While you likely can't avoid these people entirely, you can deal with them in a way that you both walk away from the conversation better off. That means figuring out when it's worth listening to them.
To help figure out the best way to deal with negative people, I spoke with Roger Gil, a mental health clinician who specializes in marriage and family therapy. As Gil notes, dealing with negative types is primarily about learning to differentiate between the opinions you should consider and the ones you should ignore—to distinguish between the pessimist who's just being a sour puss, and the pragmatist who's actually offering valuable insights. After all, if those negative nancy's aren't adding to the conversation you're probably best off ignoring them:

There is no foolproof way of distinguishing needless pessimism from productive pragmatism when seeking advice or opinions. But by assessing what goes into the formulation of the third-party opinions that can influence your own decisions, you can separate the skewed opinions from the more well-thought-out ones.

Gil's point is that you'll always run into negative people, so the best thing you can really do is figure out if their advice is worth following or not. Whether it's a friend, or a new co-worker at the office who seems to always wear the grumpy hat, here's how to root out the underlying truth in what they're really saying.

Find the Critic's Baseline

First things first, Gil recommends you find the baseline of a person before you assume they're being negative. We all have our bad days, and unless you have an idea of where a person stands you can't know whether they're just in a bad mood or if they're always like that. Gil suggests that before you assume they're negative, you spend a little time figuring out exactly how they work.

If you hang around someone long enough you will get a feel for whether they're the type to be more optimistic, pessimistic, or pragmatic. This knowledge is valuable because while you might expect a "yes" from the optimist, a "no" from the pessimist, or a "let's look at the big picture" from the pragmatist, it's the times that the responses don't follow the "party line" that should interest you. By knowing what is your critic's norm, you will be able to differentiate between the times that "they are just being themselves" versus the times that they may be recognizing something truly noteworthy.

Essentially, when your negative critic ventures off the beaten path, and offers advice to you that's surprising, that's when you should really take note. Even if they're typically the pessimist in a situation, when they break that norm, something interesting is going on there that's worth noting. Photo by deovolenti.

Follow the "Three's Company" Rule

Just because a person's a pessimist doesn't mean they're not right now and again. Gil notes that the easiest way to figure if their advice is worth following is to simply ask around, and figure out if a consensus exists that falls in line with the person's view:

If one or two people give you similar opinions, it could just be that they are drinking the same Kool Aid. If three or more people that have nothing to do with one another have similar opinions, then you are increasing the odds that the opinions you are getting are more accurate assessments of the way things are because each of those people is coming from their own unique perspective.

If it's a unanimous opinion, then perhaps that person isn't as pessimistic as you think, and their advice—whatever it may be—is worth considering. While you certainly don't need to treat the three's company rule like a law, it's worth considering if you're unsure if someone's opinion is based on their grumpy mood.

Ask the Right Questions

Eventually, your grump-spotting is going to need a little more investigation, and that means asking questions. To get to the root of why a person's opinion is the way it is, Gil suggests one question you might want to ask is the simplest:

"Why?" is the most powerful question you can ask a person who is giving you their opinion because it allows you to determine what assumptions inform their opinions. If the response you get is one that indicates a lack of insight (e.g. "I don't know, that's just how it is," "Because everyone knows that's how the world always works," etc.) then you can pretty much assume that the person's emotional baggage is informing their opinion. However if the response is one that suggests that some good, old-fashioned contemplation was involved (e.g. "The data suggests that this outcome is likely.") then you may want to lend a little more credence to the response you get.

To further root out the origin of someone's advice, and whether it's worth pursuing, you also want to ask another simple question, "would you do it again?" when it applies. The reason is pretty simple: it requires a bit of an emotional response, and that can help you differentiate their opinion even further.

When seeking the advice of someone who has walked down a path that you are considering pursuing, asking them if they would do it again and what they would do differently will reveal valuable insights into whether or not they are being objective in their assessments. If their response to "would you do it again?" feels like it's more of a reflection of their own emotional baggage than of someone who has their eyes on the situation at large then you know to give less weight to their opinions on a topic. If the person can tell you what they would do differently or can expound on why they would keep it all the same then the opinion you are getting is that of a proactive thinker instead of a passive person who is just coasting along.

The hope is that your questions will lead to a better understanding of their history, and subsequently, you'll know whether their advice is worth following in the future. When it boils down to it, the best way to root out and deal with a negative person is to figure out how much of their opinion really matters to you, if you should take it, and how much you should care about their advice moving forward.
If it's a co-worker, boss, friend, or family member, they'll likely be in your life no matter what—learning how to decide whether or not to pay attention to them helps inform your decision making moving forward. If their pessimism ends up being too much of a bummer, you can always call them out on their BS and try to remedy the situation a little. Photo by Anders Sandberg.

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Thanks to mental health clinician Roger Gil for helping with this post. You can find him on Twitter here and be sure to check out his podcast as well.
Photo by PSD Graphics, PSD Graphics, and eurobanks (Shutterstock).



 

Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 2: How to Select Your Beans

Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 2: How to Select Your Beans:
Yesterday we argued the case for better coffee, and today we're diving into selecting the best beans. Often lost in our gadget-obsessed culture is the basic fact that no fussy brewing method, precise technique, or pricey gear matters as much to your mug as the coffee beans you choose to brew. Even the most simple brewing device can produce otherworldly brews when paired with great coffee. Finding an approach into the often confusing landscape of consumer coffee bean choices is the essential first step to improving your morning ritual.

A Matter of Preference

When it comes to coffee, chaos often reigns in determining what lands in your mug. Everything from the chosen seed, to the hillside the seedling got planted on, to the mood at the mill the day the coffee cherry was processed, to the cleanliness of the coffee grinder, to your barista's preoccupation with that ambiguous drunk text they got last night from their ex can affect the final cup. Hard and fast toeholds for landing on specific preferences are few and fleeting.
A good cup of coffee is subject to more variables than the sort of beverages we can get in bottles. Think of beer or wine as being like novels or books, while coffee is closer to a magazine or newspaper—a product best enjoyed in its moment and time. Coffee's ephemeral nature makes it much harder to pin down—but that's also a big part of its charm.
A better approach is to embrace ahead of all other minutiae a sort of first order preference for coffees that are above all good—possessing the essential characteristics that elevate them above most of the products cluttering the marketplace.

What Is Good Coffee?

Mediocre or just plain bad coffee is everywhere. Store shelves are stocked with stale beans. Capsule, pod, and K-Cup coffee reigns but is a very poor value in both the machines and the consumables, and the results are a far cry from fresh coffee. In terms of raw material, most of these coffees edge closer to commodity coffee and not much care is demonstrated in their roasting. The marketing prose on a can of Folgers doesn't sound very different from the copy on a bag of "gourmet" coffee, so the consumer is often left with very few clues. (Photo by -0- (Flickr).)
Fresh roasted. The full flavor and richness of coffee diminishes dramatically and rapidly after roasting. The broadest range and intensity of flavors is experienced within the first two weeks, and no technology or fancy packaging can do very much to stop that decline. Once you experience the aroma and presence of drinking coffee from fresh roasted beans, it's hard to go back to the stuff on the supermarket shelf. Only buy coffee that has a roasted-on date and will get consumed within a couple weeks of that date.
Good green. Long before a roaster gets into the picture, great coffee begins at the farm with great land, great plants, great farmers, and great processing. An enormous amount of effort and care goes into growing the best coffees and there's typically a strong correlation between higher quality and more sustainable agricultural practices. Look for coffee that's traceable back to individual farms or cooperatives and from roasters who are dedicated to paying farmers healthy premiums for high quality.
Whole bean. Coffee's oomph is best experienced freshly ground. The minor convenience of buying beans pre-ground doesn't outweigh the massive loss of flavor and freshness that you'll incur. Buy whole bean coffee.
Sweetness. Balance. Flavor. A truly good coffee will have all three of these in spades: a natural sweetness that carries through each sip, a good balance of organic acids, a pleasing mouthfeel that makes for a cup that's lively without being bitter, flat, or rough, and an intensity of good flavors that add up to deliciousness. Seek out roasters who are discerning in their green coffee sourcing and meticulous in their roasting.
There are a growing number of small and medium sized coffee roasters doing great work and putting honest effort into their product. Starting your coffee upgrade journey by exploring the best releases from top-tier roasters is the right road (of course this author is a bit biased towards one in particular.)

Geography

Coffee is cultivated throughout the tropics, and more countries and more growers are getting on board the quality coffee bandwagon. A perusal at the offering lists from a bunch of top roasters is likely to push the limits of most people's geography knowledge.
While individual growing regions might show distinctive flavor characteristics or have particular processing styles that tend to give them a signature taste, it's important not to fall into the easy trap of dismissing or embracing an entire region or country based on just a small set of experiences. Again, coffee's slippery nature is such that even at the level of a single individual estate during a single harvest season there may be coffee experiences awaiting you at every end of the spectrum. If you keep an open mind, there are surprises to be found from almost every corner of the coffee growing world.

Roast Styles

Roasting styles run the gamut from charcoal black to light golden brown and many consumers feeling their way through the murky consumer coffee landscape find roast degree to be one of the few graspable features to lock onto as a stated preference. Even among experienced coffee pros, absolutes about degree of roast rightness and wrongness persist, though many other less visible nuances of the roasting process arguably play bigger roles in determining the ultimate awesomeness (or lack thereof) of the finished bean. Keep an open mind on roast degree and you'll likely encounter pleasant surprises across a wide swath of the spectrum.

Labels and Certifications

Sustainability, from both an environmental and economic justice perspective, is the subject of endless dialogue inside and around the coffee industry. Consumers looking to feel good about their buying choices will encounter an array of certifications on packaging labels. Each certification has its strengths and its flaws and ultimately, as with almost all agricultural products, there are no magic bullet solutions that fits every farm. Organic certification emphasizes the farm's inputs, while some of the other eco-certifications focus on bird habitat or biodiversity. Several others focus on setting floor prices for struggling farmers and building market access for cooperatives.
Some of the most exciting progress in coffee sustainability is happening with small and medium size roasters and boutique exporters and importers working to improve traceability and better prices for producers based around quality. For a newer generation of microroasters and sophisticated coffee farmers, meeting face to face and doing business more directly is paying dividends for everyone in the supply chain and resulting in the extraordinary leaps in cup quality that underly some of the current hype around high end coffee.

A Note On Tasting Notes

Inside of the coffee trade, the formal system of cupping—a procedural way to taste and evaluate coffees—leads a lot of us to develop a pretty baroque lexicon for describing a coffee's flavors. Sometimes these flavor descriptions are right on the mark ("you really can taste the apricot in that cup!"). Other times the descriptions hint at a general constellation of flavor rather than a specific taste (general citric acidity) or might even be euphemisms for something unpleasant or disappointing (calling it "fruity" instead of "fermented"). All this talk of fruits, flowers, and nuts or "cleanliness" can seem a bit intimidating and often takes away from the real gestalt of the cup. (Pictured at right: stages of maturation at Finca Matalapa in La Libertad, El Salvador. Photo via Tonx.)
The process of applying pretty prose to coffees is fun, but not always good for guiding you toward coffees you'll love or away from ones you'll dislike. So while there is much to learn about the complexity of coffee by digging into tasting notes, trusting in your tongue and worthy roasters ahead of your thesaurus is the best approach.

Finding That Perfect Bean

Sadly, it's close to impossible. Green coffee too has a shelf life and good coffee roasters manage their green inventory based on the harvest cycles. Falling too deeply in love with a newly-landed bean from Guatemala in April might lead to heartache come November. But exploring beans from roasters that share or cater to your emerging tastes can keep you very happy. Those practicing artful blending can provide you a relatively consistent flavor experience even as the components shift with the tilt of the earth.
In our next lesson, we'll start digging in to the nitty gritty of brewing.

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Tony Konecny is on a crusade to get more good coffee into more homes. When he's not busy making the world safe for great coffee with his teammates at Tonx, he can be found staying up all night rewriting short pithy autobiographies for productivity websites. You can taste what he's drinking here.
Ryan Brown has trotted the globe meeting farmers and millers and tasting coffees for the likes of Ritual and Stumptown and currently heads up the Tonx green coffee team. You can get a glimpse of the coffee world from a sourcing perspective by checking out his lovely Instagram feed href="http://instagram.com/tonxcoffee">Instagram feed.
Top image remixed from etraveler, Subbotina Anna, and Oros Gabor (Shutterstock).



 

Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 1: The Case for Better Coffee

Brew the Perfect Cup, Lesson 1: The Case for Better Coffee:
Are you a total coffee nerd, always on the hunt for the newest and best blends? Would your home-brewing gear rival the local cafe? Or maybe you're on the opposite end of the spectrum—you appreciate a cup of joe no matter its origin or fancy brewing technique. Whether you're a noob or a connoisseur, this week's Lifehacker Morning School is for you. All week, the experts from Tonx, the fresh roast subscription service, are setting out to demystify some of the contemporary coffee culture noise, and give you the knowlege you need to make great coffee anywhere. So grab your favorite cup and let's get to learning.
Today, we're discussing the case for better coffee. Is there really much difference between gas station sludge and an expensive cafe blend? And if there is, why should I care?

What Is Coffee?

By some accounts, coffee is the most popular beverage on earth besides water. The World Bank estimates that several hundred million people make their livings directly or indirectly in the global coffee trade. Coffee is a part of (and sometimes very cherished part of) many people's daily rituals. Still, many myths and misperceptions persist about what makes for a good cup.
We'll gloss over the particulars for now, but coffee as we know it is the seed from the ripened fruit of a shrub or tree native to Africa. It grows best in tropical climates at higher elevations and is cultivated commercially on five continents. The two species of commercial interest are Coffea arabica (arabica coffee) and Coffea canephora (robusta), with arabica beans being the tastier of the two. Within arabica there are a number of subtypes with different hardiness or flavor characteristics.
People in the "specialty coffee" trade talk a lot about the seed to cup chain—a seemingly insurmountable series of events from plant to pour that determines whether your coffee tastes like paradise or poo. The selection of cultivar, the long husbandry of the plants, the altitude and quality of the land, the climate, the care exercised in harvesting, the meticulousness of the processing, the practices of the dry mill, the rough travel of export, the competency of the roaster, and the many variables of right brewing all come to play in what happens in your cup.
There has been a renaissance of sorts in coffee over the last several years, from the farm level to the cafe to the kitchen. There's been a proliferation of new microroasters, a seriousness among baristas about the craft of making coffee, and an emerging gear head culture always chasing the perfect cup with the latest gadget.
But for all the noise and increasing hype around coffee, most people's daily mugs still get filled with subpar brews. Pricey pre-ground coffee capsules and pods dominate the market on store shelves and in offices. For many, real coffee remains confusing, intimidating, overly precious, or seemingly unapproachable.
People seeking to drink good coffee are often branded as snobs. But labeling someone a "coffee snob" simply for wanting a decent cup is a bit like labeling someone a "laundry snob" for wearing clean socks. There is nothing wrong with drinking good coffee.

The Argument For Great Coffee

It tastes good. Really good, actually. A well prepared cup of coffee from freshly and expertly roasted beans sourced from growers who put real care into their crop stands head and shoulders and 10-gallon hats above the lower grade and typically stale alternatives that crowd the marketplace.
Good coffee gets beyond the commodity system. Most of the world's coffee is traded as a fungible commodity, like oil or corn, subject to the whims of finance wizardry and market irrationality with little concern for quality or the welfare of the farmers who produce it. The growing Specialty Coffee market has changed the game for coffee farmers and created new opportunities for economic sustainability. Good coffee is better for everyone in the chain.
It's actually easy. The serious baristas at the fancy shop with the long lines, sporting the latest prohibition-era cosplay outfits and fondling their expensive espresso gear might lead you to believe that a well-crafted cup of coffee can only come from the hand of an expert—but the truth is that a good brew, once you grasp the basics, needn't be any more difficult to prepare than a box of macaroni and cheese (and quite a bit faster). 

The (Only) Case Against Great Coffee

It tastes really good. Once you get used to drinking awesome coffee, it gets much harder to suffer the bad stuff.
In our next lesson we'll discuss the most critical and often most under-optimized piece of the coffee puzzle: your bean selection.

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Tony Konecny has pulled a long tour of duty in the coffee wars, most recently cofounding Tonx, an innovative coffee subscription service aiming to source, roast, and ship the best fresh roasted coffees for people who brew at home. Right now, the first taste is free!
Top image remixed from etraveler, Subbotina Anna, and Oros Gabor (Shutterstock).



 

Grow Plants Outdoors with the Pot-in-Pot Method

Grow Plants Outdoors with the Pot-in-Pot Method:
Spring is around the corner. When you're ready to start working on your garden, this pot-in-pot method of growing outdoor plants can save you time and money, and also gives you the flexibility to easily switch out plants.
For the pot-in-pot method, you basically bury a pot in the ground and then drop in a plant growing in the same-size pot into that container.
The Florida Friendly Plants site points out twenty reasons why you might want to do this. Among them, you can focus water just on those plants, save time changing out annuals, experiment with plant arrangements and also see if they're suitable for your light levels, and protect plants from encroaching tree or shrub roots. Pretty smart!
Hit up the link below for more pot-in-pot planting tips and tricks.
Pot-in-Pot | Florida Friendly Plants



 

It’s give-away time!

It’s give-away time!:
Lilla gave me a copy of her book to give away. And, she signed and decorated the front page too- so pretty!
I know I mentioned the book already but I have been leisurely reading it, thinking about what she says and doing some of the prompts. I love this book. As I read along I think to myself- I do that too! or I think that too! And (maybe) I thought I was the only one. I remember a similar feeling when I first discovered podcasts and listened to loads of artist interviews. I felt so connected to people I didn’t know and amazed at our similar experiences and ways of thinking about the work.
Lilla is teaching an e-course which is an expansion on the book- all about the art markets, making work that sells, all her secret (art) agent wisdom. Check it out here.
So, if you want to be in on the give-away, leave a comment here. Anyone can enter- I’ll foot the bill for shipping wherever you are. The comment has to be on the blog- if you get the email, click over to comment. One entry per person. The giveaway will close on Sunday, March 3 at midnight est. I’ll do the random number generator thing on Monday, March 4. Good luck!
after a few comments I want to be clear- this is not a craft book, it is a book about the business of making art. You can check out the description on Amazon.