Fermentation Webinar with Marion Institute! Tuesday 1/17 noon ET

Please join me Tuesday 1/17 at noon ET / 9am PT for an hour-long fermentation webinar hosted by The Marion Institute as part of their free 21-Day Reset program.

I will do a brief demo of the easiest fermented food EVER, followed by a talk and Q&A.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88928306445?pwd=MzBXQmkvRWwva3dJbWhrR0xISTJOUT09

(What do you think I will choose to be the easiest fermented food ever?)

The Iconic Pickle

When you say "pickle" in the United States, people assume you mean "pickled cucumber".

It is the iconic pickled food.

Across the world, people enjoy pickled cucumbers in a variety of styles, from crisp and slightly tart to mouth-puckeringly sour; from the microcucumbers of South America and the diminutive cornichons of France to the fat deli cucumbers of New York City.

They can be eaten as a side, sliced and put on a sandwich, or chopped up and added to sauces (relish, tartar, gribiche). They can be the foundation of soups (popular in Eastern Europe). They can be deep-fried.

Their brine can be taken as a health tonic.

Pickling cucumbers prolongs their useful life, potentially a lot, while increasing their deliciousness and nutritiousness.

Here's how I make my pickles.

This recipe yields a mild, not-too-sour pickle, crunchy and maybe even a bit effervescent.

(If you're curious about the difference between "pickled" and "fermented", see the last part of this post!)

Carolina Slaw, Fermented Foods, and Fermented Drinks

Two new podcasts:

https://player.fm/series/the-urban-farm-podcast-with-greg-peterson/ep-357-alex-lewin-on-fermentation

https://player.fm/series/the-urban-farm-podcast-with-greg-peterson/ep-362-alex-lewin-on-kombucha-and-fermented-drinks

And a nice photo essay/recipe!

https://www.mountainfeed.com/blogs/learn/alex-lewins-fermented-carolina-slaw

If you have questions about any of this, please ask in the comments section below!

Alex

New Book: Kombucha Kefir and Beyond! Focused buy: Sept 2

Dear Reader,

I am thrilled to announce the publication and availability of our new book, Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond! Co-author Raquel Guajardo and I put our heads, hands, and spirits together to create it.

If you are inclined to do so, PLEASE buy it on September 2, either on Amazon or at your favorite bookstore. I'll come and sign it for you later. :-D

For Amazon, use this link: http://amzn.to/2vs1ls7

Here's why: If everyone buys it the same day, it will become a "best seller", and the momentum will snowball!

Here are the bullet points:

• Easy, quick recipes for fermented drinks in your home kitchen, with no special equipment
• Some FIVE MINUTE fermented drink recipes
• Drinks from many traditions, including the US (eg., switchel) and Mexico (eg., tepache)
• Tepache. That's wine made out of pineapple husks. WHAT?
• Kimchi soda (!)
• Some of our fermented cocktail recipes, including Louis C.K., Tepache Smash, and Sauerkraut Michelada
• A sober discussion of the chemistry of fermentation, why ferments are good for you, and why drinks are a good starting point
• Ever wonder what the difference is between a beer and a wine?
• And, as they say, much much more…

Fermented Drinks Demos In Half Moon Bay And Oakland!

Fermented drink demos this weekend, and again in June!

We'll be showing how easy it is to make fermented drinks like Beet Kvass, Tepache, Switchel, and maybe some others.

Click through the links for details:

THIS SATURDAY in Half Moon Bay at Sweet Farm, Saturday, May 13, 2017, 11:30-12:15 and 1:00-1:45

In Oakland at Pollinate Farm & Garden, Wednesday, June 14, 2017, 6:00PM

These demos are a sneak preview of the upcoming book that I coauthored, Ferment Your Drinks! It's available for pre-order on Amazon and should be out late this summer or this fall. I haven't properly announced it yet…I'm waiting until closer to the date…but fermented drinks are great, and even easier to prep and consume than fermented foods!

Pickles (Jewish American Heritage Month)

photo courtesy of Betty Greenwald of "Love Brines"

This month is Jewish American Heritage Month.

The cucumber pickle, while not unique to Jewish American heritage, is somewhat iconic.

In honor of that, here is my recipe for fermented cucumber pickles. And when I say "my recipe", I realize that there are many recipes like it, but this one is mine. And I mean "mine" not in the possessive sense, like a 3-year-old who won't share their toys, nor in the creative sense, since I make no claims about its originality, because like many fermentation recipes and many folk recipes in general, it is a synthesis of all that has come before.

By "mine" I mean simply that it's the one that I use, and the one that I am offering here today.

Cucumber Pickles (Fermented)

Equipment

- two 32-oz wide-mouth mason jars with one tight-fitting lid

- a tablespoon measure

- (optional) a digital kitchen scale

Ingredients

- 6 or 8 or more pickling cucumbers, 4 to 5 inches long each, an inch or less in diameter

- 3 tablespoons of additive-free kosher salt or sea salt (not iodized table salt)

- 3 or 4 cloves of garlic

- 10 peppercorns

- 2 or 3 bay leaves

- (optional) a tablespoon of preservative-free, mixed pickling spices

- boiling water (for cleaning jars)

- 24 oz or so of room temp water, filtered or previously boiled and cooled

Procedure

Sterilize jars and lid by pouring boiling water over all surfaces.

Measure approximately 24 oz (750ml) of water into one of the mason jars (most of them have markings), add 3 tablespoons (45g) of salt, close lid, and shake until dissolved. The goal is for the weight of the salt to be approximately 6% of the weight of the water.

To the other, empty mason jar, add the bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, and any other spices.

Take one cucumber, cut approximately 1/4" off each end, and put it in this jar atop the spices. Repeat this step with subsequent cucumbers until the jar is full and you can add no more cucumbers. They should be snug. Don't be afraid to get a little rough with them.

Pour the brine over the cucumbers to within 3/4" or so of the top of the jar.

Close the lid finger-tight. 

Leave in a dark, cool corner for a few days to a week, depending on ambient temperature and desired sourness. They should get bubbly. Refrigerate.

Mazel tov! You have made fermented pickles!

Eat any time. They will keep in the refrigerator for a month or two or maybe more.

Save the brine for picklebacks, to use as a salad dressing base, as a digestive tonic, or as a sports drink. (So many electrolytes!)

photo courtesy of Betty Greenwald of "Love Brines"

Fermentation Demo! Boston Public Market, March 4 1PM-3PM

Boston Folks:

I'm doing a demo from 1PM-3PM Saturday March 4 at The Kitchen at Boston Public Market!

Come learn how to ferment. Get a signed copy of my book.

And maybe there will be a sneak-preview of recipes from my new book with coauthor Raquel Guajardo!

Full info here: https://fermentation_101.eventbrite.com/?aff=Alex

Space is limited.

Hope to see you there!

Basic Fermenting Recipes

I'm making this post for attendees at the hands-on the workshop I did at Pollinate Farm & Garden in Oakland, California on April 19.

But anyone else is welcome to read the post too. :-)

Please post in the "comments" section below if you have questions, or if you'd like to discuss other ways to eat these fermented foods (I've offered a couple, but I've only scratched the surface).

My book, Real Food Fermentation, has more information about fermented foods. Click here for information about how to get the book.

Basic Sauerkraut

Ingredients and Equipment

• cabbage (round, green or red)
• salt (1/3 ounce or 2 tsp. per pound of cabbage; or 20g per kg of cabbage)
• large, sharp chef's knife
• large cutting board
• large mixing bowl
• mason jars, preferably wide-mouthed (a bit more than 16 oz. capacity per pound of cabbage)
• a digital kitchen scale (available from your favorite brick-and-mortar store, or online)
• (optional) a thin, narrow-mouthed mason jar to stuff with

Instructions

• chop cabbage, finely or coarsely
• put cabbage and salt in mixing bowl
• squeeze cabbage and salt vigorously with hands until liquid runs freely (this may take a few minutes)
• put cabbage and liquid in mason jars, leaving an inch or two of "headroom", and close lids
• leave to sit, not in sunlight, but somewhere you won't forget about it (kitchen counter?)
• "burp" the jars every day for the first few days (if you don't do this, they may spill over and/or break the top!)
• it's ready after 4 days or 4 months or somewhere in between, depending on how you like it

Eat it

• on its own
• on a sandwich
• as a side dish with grilled meat
• juice it!

Mixed/Fancy Kraut

Follow recipe for Basic Sauerkraut, but use a mixture of vegetables instead of just cabbage, slice or cut into shapes and sizes as you like, and/or add herbs and/or spices to taste. Caraway seeds are a classic seasoning; 1 tsp per pound of cabbage is a ballpark amount, although different caraway seeds have different potencies. Things like garlic, ginger, turmeric, horseradish, burdock, etc. can provide nice flavor and health benefits.

Beet Kvass

Ingredients and Equipment

• a handful of beets (red or golden, number needed may vary with size)
• 1 Tbsp salt
• large, sharp chef's knife
• large cutting board
• half-gallon mason jar
• (optional) vegetable peeler 

Instructions

• fill jar halfway with water
• add salt
• put lid on jar and shake until salt is dissolved
• if the beets are not organic, peel them
• cut beets into 1/2-inch cubes
• put beets in mason jar, to fill about 1/4 or 1/3 of jar
• fill jar nearly to top with water, leaving an inch or two, and close lid
• beet greens, if there were any, can be fermented as "Mixed/Fancy Kraut" recipe above
• wait a 4 days to 4 weeks, tasting the liquid periodically
• once you like it, strain out the beets and store them separately
• the liquid is "beet kvass"
• the fermented beets may be slice and used in a salad, or juiced, or whatever

Drink it

• a shot first thing in the morning
• in a cold vegetable soup or gazpacho
• in a Bloody Mary cocktail, or with beer for a michelada

Preserved Lemon (Citrus)

Ingredients and Equipment

• lemons, Meyer lemons, limes, or citrus of your choice, ideally from a garden rather than from a shop
• salt (approximately 10% of weight of citrus)
• knife & cutting board
• mixing bowl
• big mason jars
• (optional) "pickling spice" mix from store (without preservatives; read the ingredients)

Instructions

• cut citrus into approximately 1/2 inch (1 cm) squares
• squeeze citrus over mixing bowl; add the peel to the bowl as well
• add salt and optional spices to bowl; mix
• pack the mixture tightly into mason jars, leaving an inch or two of headroom, and close lids
• let the lemons sit for months or years

Eat it

• anywhere you might use fresh lemon
• in your potato salad (or tuna salad or chicken salad)
• cook it with fish or roast chicken
• add a shot of sweetener for a fermented lemonade

More Things to Read

• health benefits of fermented foods
• reflections on beverages 
• how I make kombucha (it's certainly not the only way)

Boston Fermented Dinner And Drink Pairing Pop-Up, Monday June 16

Boston-area fermentos Geoffrey Lukas (of Sofra) and Jeremy Ogusky (of Boston Ferments and Ogusky Ceramics) have teamed up to offer a Fermented Dinner and Drink Pairing, at City Girl Café in Inman Square on Monday June 16. Details are here and here. It will be fabulous, and some of the proceeds will go to support the Boston Fermentation Festival in September. And all attendees will get a commemorative hand-made ceramic cup!

Again, details here and here.

Sign up now before all the tickets are gone!

And if you're not around Boston and/or you can't make it, please draw inspiration from the menu, and think about what kind of fermented events might work where you live...

Boise Food & Health Weekend May 3 and 4 2014!

Last year, blogger and friend Raine Saunders hosted a Food & Health Weekend at her home in Boise, ID. We had a fantastic time--I led a fermenting workshop, and there were also presentations on liver and pâté, and on "sun, sleep and supplements". In between, we visited farmers markets, spent time at the local hot springs, and had a real food potluck!

Good news: We are doing it again! It will be the weekend of May 3 and 4, 2014.

Details follow. Please sign up and pay in advance, so that we can make travel arrangements and get the right amounts of materials.

Full info, schedule, and sign up are here. Or:

BUY NOW Alex's fermentation workshop, $40 --> http://bit.ly/1m3UAk6
BUY NOW Raine's yogurt workshop, $15 --> http://bit.ly/1gwT56y
BUY NOW Cheryl's GAPS & Leaky Gut presentation, $10 -->http://bit.ly/1qD3CVW
BUY NOW Mary's kombucha/kefir workshop, $12 -- > http://bit.ly/PAH4Y6
BUY NOW All event workshops and receive $7 discount -->http://bit.ly/1cFEpq5
BUY NOW Alex's book --> http://amzn.to/1gwiYXQ

If you have questions, please comment on this post and I'll answer them ASAP.

EVENT LOCATION: 406 W. Iowa Street, Boise, Idaho 83706
Phone contact: 208-869-8860

SCHEDULE: SATURDAY, May 3rd

12:15 PM GAPS and Leaky Gut Syndrome with Cheryl Carruth 

1:30 PM Homemade yogurt with Raine Saunders

2:30 PM Demo on soaking nuts and oatmeal with Alex Lewin & Raine Saunders

2:45 - 4:45 PM Fermented vegetables - sauerkraut, kimchi, and beet kvass with Alex Lewin, author of Real Food Fermentation and the blog Feed Me Like You Mean It

8:00 PM Join us in Idaho City at The Springs for a hot mineral soak to end the day!

CLICK HERE to reserve your spot at The Springs on Saturday, May 3rd -->http://bit.ly/1gqyOmS

SUNDAY, May 4th 

1:30 PM Demo on soaking nuts and oatmeal continued with Alex Lewin & Raine Saunders

2:00 PM Kombucha & Kefir with Mary Korte

3: 30 PM - ?? Everyone is welcome to attend! Bring a dish to share and come meet the members of your local food community, with a real food potluck at our workshop location (see address above).

I'm Teaching A Fermentation Class At Stanford

I'm teaching a fermentation class at Stanford, in partnership with Dr. Tia Rich and Dr. Angela Marcobal. It will be on four consecutive Fridays—Feb 28, Mar 7, Mar 14, and Mar 21—from 12:30-1:30pm.

Details are here (at the bottom of page 7). To register, click here, search for "ferment", and proceed. (If someone finds a reasonable way to link directly to the class page, please post a comment.) Enrollment is limited to 25, and as I write this, 14 spots have been taken already.

Kombucha Balance

I was thinking of writing a follow-up to my October post about kombucha.

Then I stumbled across this great page by Len Porzio entitled "Kombucha, The Balancing Act: Obtaining and Maintaining the Maximum Taste and Benefit from your Kombucha through Consideration and Application of Balance."

How I Make Kombucha

I've settled into a pretty good kombucha-making routine recently. Here's how I've been doing it, how you can get started, and how you can make sure your kombucha survives even if you need to abandon it for a few weeks!
Feel free to post any kombucha questions in the comments at the end of this post—I promise to answer them as quickly as I can.

Boston Fermentation Festival

Come one, come all!

Saturday September 28, 10AM - 2PM, at the Egleston Square Farmers' Market in (yes) Boston.

It is shaping up to be a great event, including workshops, demos, book signings, tastings, lectures, and lots of fermentation-related products for sale. For full details, see here or here.
View Larger Map

Fermentation Equipment, Part 1: Airlocks

When I'm fermenting vegetables and fruits, I often use a wide-mouth Mason jar. These jars have many virtues:

• cheap
• tough
• available in a variety of sizes
• easy to clean, dishwasher-safe
• fit nicely in fridge

But there are times when I want something more…

The Health Benefits of Fermented Foods

When we say that a food is "fermented", we generally mean that it has been transformed one way or another by microbes--bacteria, yeasts, molds, or some combination. Molds play a role in the creation of some kinds of cheeses and cured meats (dried sausages, for instance), along with soy sauce, among other things. Yeasts are responsible for anything that contains alcohol, either as an end product or in an intermediate stage (vinegar, for instance, and bread). Bacteria are responsible for things that are sour--from vinegar to yogurt to sauerkraut to mustard to chutneys and condiments like ketchup. Nowadays, short-cut versions of some of these foods are manufactured via processes that do not rely directly on fermentation.

The health benefits of fermented foods can be broken down into a number of categories:

Book Signings at Omnivore Books, WAPF Conference, Etc.; Blog Tour Continues

The blog tour continues, with great posts from Lindsey at Homemade Mommy and Britt at Honest to Goodness Living.

In real life, I have a few exciting events coming up! For full details, see my Events page.

• November 8, 2012, 6PM: Demo, talk, and book signing at Omnivore Books in San Francisco.
• November 10, 2012, 1PM: Book signing at the Radiant Life booth at the Weston A. Price Wise Traditions conference in Santa Clara, California.
• November 15, 2012: Event at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA as part of the Food Literacy program. (Details to be determined.)
• January, 2012 (not yet confirmed): A tag-team book talk and signing at The Ecology Center in Berkeley, California, with the fabulous Nishanga Bliss, author of Real Food All Year, Professor of Chinese Medicine, and practicing acupuncturist.

(Again, for full details about these and other events, see my Events page.)

Real Food Fermentation On Tour

Real Food Fermentation is on tour—a physical tour and a blog tour!

The next stop on the physical tour is at 6PM, Thursday, November 8 at Omnivore Books in San Francisco. Omnivore is a fantastic food-focused independent book store. If you're in the area, please stop by! Full details here.

As for the blog tour…

Every day for the next couple of weeks, someone different will be blogging about my book! Today, Melissa over at Real Food Eater made this awesome post. Head on over, pick up a free recipe excerpted from my book, and put your name in the hat to win one of two free copies of Real Food Fermentation!

Real Food Fermentation Comes To You

I have upcoming events

• on Sept 15 in Providence, RI;
• on Sept 18 in Boston, MA;
• on Sept 20 in West Concord, MA;
• on Sept 30 in Baltimore, MD;
• and on Oct 13 in Santa Monica, CA.

Come see me, get a book, and get it signed! Full details are on my events page, which will be updated as more information becomes available and more events are scheduled.

UPDATE (9/14/2012): There is a new event in Boston on Sept 18. The Cambridge event on Sept 20 has been cancelled. The list above has been updated to reflect these changes. Full info is available here.

Real Food Fermentation Amazon Bestseller Campaign Worked!

We publicized Real Food Fermentation massively yesterday. The goal was to get a lot of Amazon.com orders within a short period of time, so that the book would jump up in Amazon's rankings and attract other buyers.

It worked extremely well. I was thrilled with the results!

With your help, Real Food Fermentation climbed as high as:

#1 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Healthy
#1 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Canning & Preserving
#1 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian
#1 in Movers & Shakers in Books
#1 in Hot New Releases in Cookbooks, Food & Wine
#1 in Hot New Releases in Special Diet Cooking
#1 in Hot New Releases in Canning & Preserving
#1 in Hot New Releases in Vegetables & Vegetarian Cooking
#3 in Hot New Releases in Diets & Weight Loss
#5 in Hot New Releases in Health, Fitness & Dieting
#18 in Hot New Releases in Books
#59 in Books

I don't even know what other categories exist on Amazon, where else the book might show up, or whether the above numbers were the absolute peaks. Amazon lists are hard to navigate.

Anyway, a big thank you to everyone, especially those of you who were able to buy the book.

And HUGE thanks to blogging compadres who supported me by reviewing or mentioning it:

• Jenny at Nourished Kitchen
• Ann Marie at Cheeseslave
• Kelly the Kitchen Kop
• Annabelle at Kombucha Fuel
• Erin at Erin's Eco List

My publicity plan consisted of the following:

• Asking a few fellow bloggers to look at the book, and do reviews if they were moved to. (More coming…)
• Stepping up my own blogging
• Emailing EVERYONE I know. Really. Twice. At least. In the process of this, I discovered that a good quarter of my address book no longer worked. I also discovered that gmail cuts you off if you send too many emails too quickly!
• Facebooking and tweeting vigorously throughout the day—and trying to reply or respond to every interaction that anyone had with me.

To be continued…