Thank you to everyone who has attended one of my free webinars or in-person workshops. They have been so much fun for me to teach and I hope my attendees have enjoyed them as well. Below is my new schedule for May and June. Webinars: Google Hangout To register for the webinars, please choose one or more […]
cultures
How to Make a Sourdough Starter (in Stick Drawings)
I taught a sourdough starter workshop last month and I really could have used some graphics to outline the process. Creating a starter from scratch may sound complicated (you can read more about it here and here) but involves only a handful of steps and your patience. I hope these slides will help explain this […]
Travels with Etheldreda
Etheldreda is my kombucha SCOBY. SCOBY stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts. A SCOBY (aka mother or mushroom) will transform sweetened tea into kombucha, an effervescent, probiotic and delicious fermented drink. (I’m enjoying a glass as I type!) My generous friend Cory of Aquarian Bath mailed me a SCOBY last year, from which Etheldreda evolved. […]
Happy Birthday, Eleanor (How to Make a Sourdough Starter)
Click here to go straight to the recipe Updated 04/19/20 A year ago I wondered if Eleanor would make it to this day. I had baked with a couple of other sourdough starters before Eleanor came along, and I thought they exhibited fundamental flaws—they lacked vigor, they smelled too acidic, they produced lackluster loaves. As I’ve come […]
5 Things I Do that Were Once Considered Normal
I cook, eat and live the way I do for several reasons: I reject single-use plastic packaging I like to eat food that tastes good I prefer to eat food that contains nutritional value I refuse to depend upon corporations to fulfill my every need and desire Consuming less makes my life simpler and more enjoyable […]
Winter and Spring Fermentation Workshops
The idea that kombucha (or any ferment) is safe only in the hands of technical experts denies the long lineages of home and village production that spawned them and plays right into the disempowering cult of specialization. — Sandor Katz, The Art of Fermentation Last week, when Vlad tasted my first variation on sourdough bread (coriander-raisin), […]
The Mother of All Ferments: Kombucha
Click here to go straight to the recipe If you can brew a pot of tea, you can brew kombucha. The only trick to making kombucha is obtaining a mother to get started. A generous Twitter friend sent me part of hers and my mother (I named her Etheldreda) has been reproducing like mad. Otherwise […]
Sourdough Bread from Starter to Finish
At a holiday office lunch last week, some of my coworkers complained about women they have blocked on Facebook. Their crime? Posting too many new baby pics. While I understand not wanting to see every minute of a newborn’s life documented in one’s feed, I’m just like these new mothers, except I post pictures of bread […]
Free Fermentation Webinar: Saturday, January 10, 2015
If you read my blog at all, you may be thinking one of the following: 1. Fermentation sounds revolting. Why does she keep going on about it? 2. OMG. I love fermentation. I named my sourdough starter [insert name]. 3. I have never tried fermentation and would like to but it scares me. I don’t want to […]