Life Style

Saving seeds seems hard to do, until you’ve actually done it. But with the cost of a packet of seeds now ranging from $4 to $10, the financial incentive is well worth it. Additionally, you end up with seeds from vegetables particularly well-suited to your garden. Besides, there’s a certain smug self satisfaction you get when you complete the plant/harvest/collect seed/plant again cycle. Here are the tips I wish I’d had when I started.The first year you save seeds, commit to saving no more than 10 varieties of seeds. This is a hobby you want to grow into. You can easily lose track of what’s what, and get overwhelmed. I recommend choosing your ten favorite vegetables, which are generally easy to harvest seeds from, and then saving those seeds. There are a million varieties of flowers and veg...

Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days has officially begun, and if you’re in the market for some new Beats headphones, then you’re in luck. Amazon has quite a few Beats headphones and earbuds on discount for their two-day sales event.The Beats Fit Pro is one of the latest products from Beats. The earbuds have secure-fit wingtips for a better fit, powered by the Apple H1 chip which enables ANC (active noise cancellation) and Spatial Audio (on iOS only).Battery life is up to six hours with ANC on and seven hours with it off, with an additional 30 hours from the charging case. It also works with both Android and iOS devices and charges over USB-C. There’s IPX4 sweat and water resistance so you shouldn’t have a problem listening while exercising or hustling through light rain. The Beats Fit Pro earbuds...

Being prepared for power outages caused by weather or other disasters is getting easier as battery technology improves—which is a good thing, because the weather keeps getting worse. Keeping devices charged so you can stay updated on emergency information, have a light source, and be able to tune into the radio if internet and cellular networks go down are all important parts of being prepared in an emergency. Ryobi has come up with a Storm Combo Kit that can address several aspects of emergency preparedness.Because the system comes with a battery and charger, it’s a good deal at $129. A battery and charger on its own would cost between $55 and $75, so getting the battery with the rest of these tools for $130 is a steal. Having only one battery wouldn’t be the most practical, however—so i...

Image: AppleAmazon’s Prime Big Deal Days are sure to include a ton of great deals for everyone to take advantage of. One of the best you’ll find this week is already available, though, as Apple’s AirPods Pro with USB-C are just $189 right now.The latest generation of these AirPods typically runs for $250, and $60 off isn’t a bad savings for a product that released less than a month ago. Apple originally debuted the new AirPods Pro with USB-C at its September Wanderlust event, showcasing new features like adaptive transparency and support for a richer audio experience thanks to Apple’s H2 chip.The new earbuds also support Apple’s personalized spatial audio, which will work alongside the Vision Pro when it releases next year. You can expect a bit more battery life with these newer AirPods ...

Image: GoogleIf you’re in the market for a new Android tablet, then Amazon has a few to choose from during Prime Big Deal Days. One of the better tablet deals is on the new Pixel Tablet, which is on sale for $409, $90 off the original price. The Pixel Tablet is Google’s latest, featuring an 11-inch display and an included dock, which effectively transforms the tablet into a smart display and speaker.Powering the tablet is the Google Tensor G2 chip, the same chip found in the Pixel 7 series of phones. The G2 chip inside powers a lot of the AI experiences (including using the tablet as a smart display), so you can control your smart home devices and ask questions to Google Assistant.The Pixel Tablet comes in 128 and 256GB storage models and a number of color options including Hazel, Porcela...

Melted butter, without modification or adornment, makes a pretty damn good sauce, but whisking it with a little hot water makes it silkier, clingier, and, surprisingly, creamier. The resulting sauce has a fancy French name—beurre monté—but this simple emulsification can be whipped up by home cooks of any skill level.“Beurre monté’ simply means “mounted butter.” The phrase is used to refer to both the technique and the sauce itself, but don’t let the French intimidate you. If you can whisk, you can make this a sauce.Like mayonnaise, hollandaise sauce, and butter itself, beurre monté is an emulsification—a mixture of two immiscible ingredients, one of which is suspended in the other. When butter is melted, its emulsion breaks, but whisking cold butter in hot water stabilizes the emulsion, ke...

Baguettes are at their best the day they’re baked, which can make stockpiling them a little challenging. But cheese plates feel incomplete without crusty bread, so I like to keep them around, just in case I need to do any impromptu entertaining (or satisfy a personal craving). Luckily, simple breads like baguettes freeze incredibly well.By “simple,” I mean breads that are made with flour, water, yeast, and salt, or sourdough. Breads that have been enriched with dairy or eggs don’t do quite as well in the icebox. You can freeze baguettes whole or sliced, but I like to cut them in half, so I can defrost what I need, without committing to crostini.Start by cutting the baguette into a size that will fit in your freezer. Mini baguettes can be left whole, but most full-sized baguettes will have ...

Peloton’s Bike and Bike+ are on sale today for Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, at prices even better than during Prime Days back in July. The original Bike is nearly 25% off, and the upgraded Bike+ is 20% off.Of the two models, Peloton’s Bike is the classic, and it’s $350 cheaper than list price today. While I can’t predict the future, I have a strong feeling this is the cheapest the Bike is going to be this year. Today’s $1,095 price tag is cheaper than Prime Day, and cheaper than last year’s Black Friday sale. It’s even cheaper than the $1,145 price for refurbished bikes. You’re unlikely to be able to beat today’s deal unless you’re buying used.The Bike is a solidly built spin bike with a big touchscreen on which you can play classes with the platform’s instructors/motivational speakers or...

      If you’ve ever wanted a robot buddy of your own to slurp up the detritus you’ve been leaving behind, Prime Big Deal Days is go time. There are deals to be had left and right on robot vacuums from iRobot, Shark, Roborock, Ecovacs, Yeedy, Coredy and more. But if you’re looking to score the deepest discount, the eufy RoboVac G20 is it. Normally $229, Amazon is ratcheting down the price by 43% to $129 during Prime Big Deal Days. (Note: Prices can change at any time during this sale, but were live as of the time of this writing.) Eufy is a well-known brand in the robot space, and this particular model has garnered good reviews, particularly on Amazon, where it holds a solid four-star rating. There are lots of things to like here. This particularly slim bot has a...