Fermentation

I have two batches of kimchi fermenting on my deck/porch. I am using Sandor Ellix Katz's book "Wild Fermentation" as my guide.

His book is truly interesting because it is more than a cookbook. It is a history of fermentation though culture and time, and a collection of his personal stories involving his experiences living at Short Mountain Sanctuary, a queer intentional community, and battling HIV/AIDs. He attributes fermented foods as a big part of how he stays healthly.

My kimchi contains:

• red & green cabbage


• ginger


• chispas farms garlic


• yellow & green jalapenos


• turnips


• carrots

All of these delicious veggies are floating around in a kosher salt water brine. It's been fermenting for 10 days, and boy does it smell and taste stinky delicious.

I ate kimchi everyday in China. They call it simply 'salt vegetables'. I've always been a lover of pickles, and I attribute my digestive health while traveling through Asia to the fermented foods in my diet. I ate street food every day, and I only got sick one time. I visualize my stomach flora as a wimpy little coughing plant before I started eating salt vegetables, and now I see my stomach as this forrest of digestive flora breaking down some of the chemical yuck yucks that go through my system.

To me, fermentation is nostalgic of my time in Inner Mongolia,

a way to be healthy, and share with others my delight for ferments,

and most of all fun!