Rice & Pickles January 13 & 14

Menu

When you Dine in with us everything from the Dashi to the Sweet Bite is included in the meal. So, the only decisions you’ll need to make are the additions. We have Goma Dofu, which translates to Sesame Tofu. Goma Dofu is not a true tofu, in that there is no soy in it. It is made entirely out of Sesame Seeds, which are toasted, ground, pureed with some Dashi, and then heated with Kudzu Root. Kudzu Root is a root starch that acts as a binder and it lends a texture to the finished product that is similar to a silken tofu, which is where it gets its name.  We also have avocado. The avocados this week are Bacons grown by Step Ladder Farm and they are topped with Garlic fermented with Koji and Nukazuke Carrots- carrots fermented in rice bran overnight. We also offer a cured egg.  We make the eggs every Wednesday. They are a six-and-a-half minute egg that we marinate in a mixture of tamari, and shiso vinegar, which is a shiso kombucha that has gone to acetic, or vinegary, to use a beverage but the shiso flavors are still nice and clean, so we long age it into a mild vinegar mix it with the tamari and sake lees from last years Jalapeno ferment.

Goma Dofu

Goma Dofu

Goma Dofu

We always begin the bowl with a 50/50 blend of short-grain brown and sweet brown rice, sticky or glutinous brown rice, grown by the Lundberg Family here in California. We top the rice with a gomashio or sesame salt. Our take on this traditional Japanese toasted sesame and salt condiment is that instead of using salt we use either one of our ferments that we have dried and powdered or we use seaweed. Today we have toasted sesame seeds, dried and powdered leek tops give it its green color and we use Sea Lettuce instead of salt.

Rice cooked in Donabe

In the center of the bowl, we have carrots that are steamed, pureed, and seasoned with our Sweet White Miso. At the bottom center of the bowl is a sauerkraut made from green cabbage, beets, carrots, and ginger, which we call our Super Sauerkraut Salad. To the right of the sauerkraut we have kohlrabi. The kohlrabi was shaved on the mandoline and mixed with our Indian Pickled Limes, which is an 11-month fermentation of limes. They are our version of an Indian achar, like the mango pickle that you might get on the side of your dosa. The limes are minced and mixed with the shaved kohlrabi and left to sit for a few days. Just under that, we have scarlet queen turnips that were pickled this week in the brine from our Umeboshi plums. Continuing to the right we have turnip greens that were mixed this week with kasuzuke jalapeno which is a one-year fermentation of jalapenos in sake lees. Takari Sake, one of the larger sake producers in our region, is just a few blocks from The Shop. We essentially tap into their waste stream, we get the byproduct from their fermentation which is a paste of rice, rice koji, and yeast. We take that paste, called kasu or sake kasu, and we add sugar to it, to feed the yeast that is still living in it, we add salt to it, to moderate the fermentation and for texture preservation, and then we bury vegetables, such as the jalapenos, in it for 12-18 months to make a pickle known as kasuzuke, meaning pickled in kasu. This week we minced our 2022 jalapenos and mixed them with the turnip greens, letting them marinate for a few days. On top of the turnip greens, the white pickle, is Daikon radish. A couple of weeks ago we made a mash made from rice, rice koji, and barley shochu, we put dried and salted daikon in the mash and left to ferment to make the pickle known as bettarazuke. 

Carrot Puree

Super Sauerkraut Salad

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi mixed with Indian Pickle Lime

Turnips pickled with Umeboshi Brine

Scarlet Queen Turnips

Turnip Greens with Kasuzuke Jalapenos

Kasuzuke Jalapenos

Daikon Bettarazuke

On the other side of the bowl, to the left of the sauerkraut, we have a kimchi of pumpkin. On top of that we have nettles that were blanched, minced, and marinated in our miso tamiar which is the liquid that rises to the top of the vessel during our sweet white miso production. We also have okra fermented in a brine with garlic and chile.

Nettles

Nettles Blanched

Ready to be minced and marinated in Miso Tamari

On top of the puree, we add a few chips of kasuzuke burdock, a 12-month ferment of burdock root. The green today is a mix of frisee, radicchio, and spinach. They are dressed with a fermented lime rind or a kosho. Kosho is traditionally made with yuzu rind. We make ours with a variety of California citrus. Last year we received some beautiful yellow-skinned Bearss Limes. We juiced the limes for kombucha but before juicing we removed the rind, pureed with salt, and fermented it for a couple of weeks. We then took that fermented citrus paste and thinned it out with some olive oil and lime juice to make a salad dressing. Finally, we top the bowl with scallion. The scallion was rubbed with a paste we make from dates, tamari, and the brine from our chile paste and dehydrated to make it crispy

Burdock Kasuzuke

Frisee, Radicchio & Spinach with a Lime Kosho Dressing

Dusting Off

It’s been 10 years. Maybe it’s time to dust this off and start up again. It’s nice here. There’s room to stretch out, breathe a bit, without all the noise and clutter of the Instagram landscape. There is also an opportunity to tell longer stories with more and better pictures, in a format that fits our style a little better. Look around, it’s just us here and  I think I'm really going to enjoy that. I hope you do too. 

I don't have a very ambitious agenda. I don’t have the time. There is so much actual work to get done. Once I’m up and running I hope that I can post once or twice a week. I’ll do one post that is a review of the previous weeks production and another that recaps that weekends Rice & Pickles bowl. In the end that will be a lot. Here we go…..

-Kevin

Karashi-zuke

At times we seek a heat that's not spicy. The slow building warmth of ginger. The clear-cut through your sinuses of wasabi. Eyes tearing up from that hit of hot mustard.

Hot Mustard. Oriental Mustard. Asian Mustard. From the ground down seeds of Brassica juncea. When was the first time I tasted it? Oddly I think it was as a child in Provo Utah, in the back seat of the yellow VW Rabbit, a twenty piece McNugget on my lap. Later in Chicago on the sidewalk, sitting on my board and squeezing a tube of it onto my egg roll. It can seize your head. Ring a clear bell through your ear tubes. Fill your mouth with a flash of heat then vanish. Flash after flash. Not pain so much as alarm. This is karashi.

Karashi-zuke. Vegetables fermented in a mixture of sakekasu and mustard. The recipe most often sited is for nasu. Eggplant, with myoga or ginger, this is called nasu karishizuke or karashi-nasu.

For my first go at it I used a mustard that we had made with yellow mustard seed and brine from a green tomato chutney. It was head removing in its potency. We put it into the cave and forgot about it for two years. When we stumbled upon it again it had mellowed substantially but still packed a wallop. I mixed the mustard with whole baby eggplant and myoga and fermented it in an 18 month burdock kasu.

In just eight weeks the pickle was astonishingly good. The eggplant wasn't quite ready throughout the ferment- though some were choice most had not fermented through yet, with tough skins and Styrofoamy flesh. The myoga, however, was fantastic. The shoot had become nearly translucent and the piquancy of myoga and mustard went one for one in a tremendous balance of suddenness and intensity.... and dissipation. As this pickle aged  and the eggplant fermented through it became truly special. The myoga remained the star.

The following spring I used the, at that time nine months old, karashi-nasu kasu to ferment straight myoga for a dinner at Elements in Princeton New Jersey. In the dish Chef Mike Ryan combined nukazuke celery root, fermented in the nukadoko I had made for them, re-hydrated dried celery root, a dice of clam and its' abductor with a muscle aioli, and karashizuke myoga- all in a broth of roasted tomatillos, clam innards, woodruff leaves and flowers- then garnished with foraged wisteria flowers. Beautiful and delicious. A wonderful dish.

This year we took a different approach. We made a mustard of brown and yellow mustard seed that we hydrated in jalapeno kasuzuke liquid.  When we ferment a vegetable with a high water content, like say a pepper, in sakekasu it usually develops a layer of liquid that is something like a syrup of pepper juice and kasu. I try to siphon this liquid off so that it doesn't thin out the sakekasu too much at the time of packaging. I save the liquid as a fermenting medium.  We aged the mustard for a couple of months. Though it had its merits, I didn't enjoy it like the previous mustard. It lacked the potency that I think of as karashi. I also used Japanese eggplant which I cut on the bias at about 5mm, and used ginger instead of myoga. Perhaps most importantly we used virgin kasu from Takara rather then our house fermented kasu.

The results were completely different. In two months time the eggplant was pleasantly fermented through. Though not quite melt in your mouth it did have a sort of  yielding toothsomeness, just shy of luxurious. The ginger was bright and hot. The mustard, unfortunately, was all but lost. It was far too subtle for my taste, and for what I was hoping for. The kasu had the same salt and sugar percentage as the original version but was much younger. The sweetness had not metabolized out and the salt was still rough and forward, though not unpleasantly so. The staff loves it. It's eggplant candy. A success within a failure- the best kind.

-Kevin

Shibazuke

Eggplant has proven itself a challenging vegetable for us to pickle. We have been disappointed with the color as it often turns a corpse like blue-grey, and with the texture, which has been either styrofoam or mush. However it had been a number of years since our last attempt and I really wanted to add a new pickle to the tsukemono line. I had my eye set on shibazuke.

Shibazuke is a traditional lacto ferment of eggplant, shiso, & ginger. The pickle is said to have originated in Kyoto, Japan with some recipes calling for the addition of cucumber and myoga (the new shoots of a ginger relative). While looking for recipes I had trouble finding one that was fermented, most calling for acidification by means of rice vinegar or umezu (the brine from umeboshi). I reached out to Naoko Moore, a culinary educator in Los Angeles, who has the informative website naokomoore.com and is co-authoring, along with Kyle Connaughton, an up and coming book on Donabe (claypot) Cookery. Naoko sent me a very authentic and basic recipe for Shibazuke.

The technique is a bit of a departure for us. Usually we will cut or shred our vegetables, salt them at about 2%, let them sweat for the day, and pack them into the vessel, the brine covering the top, allowing them to ferment for an average of six weeks or so.  In this case we layered the eggplant, shiso, and ginger- salted at 5%- and allowed the brine to develop in the vessel under weight. We fermented the pickle for only 2 weeks.

The resulting pickle was truly wonderful. Salt forward, the eggplant had great texture with a acute ginger bite. But this pickle is really all about the shiso, it's herbal pepperiness weaves itself throughout, and that color. That Color!!

Soon after leaving the fermenting vessel the shibazuke was jarred up and left the Shop, headed for Chicago, where it sat next to donabe smoked salmon in a dish created by Chef Kyle Connaughton for this years Imbibe and Inspire conference.

The eggplant texture  reminded me of the flesh of the Royal Trumpet mushroom, which I was scheduled to receive a few pounds of the following week. I was eager to apply the technique to the fungus.

If possible I enjoyed this pickle even more. The subtle earthiness of the mushroom was still present and the texture has reminded many who have tried it of tender squid or octopus. Delightful!

Perspective

To increase our understanding we need to take the time to take a closer look.

-Kevin

Sakura No Shiozuke

A beautiful Sunday morning in May. The blossoms arrived in a woven basket hanging off the arm of Jeffrey Stoneberger who arrived at The Shop with his usually flurry of activity. Out of the basket the blossoms swayed on branches, ethereal and cloud like, in a shifting range of pink to white, petals drifting down to the table top.

What to do with them? Kombucha for sure.

What else? How does one capture the delicate in its profound and fleeting moment?

The Japanese have a tradition of preserving cherry blossoms in salt. Sakura no shiozuke.

The technique is a bit of a departure for us. At the shop we create acids. This called for adding one: vinegar. As it happened, Jeffrey also brought with him an exquisite pear-sake vinegar that he had crafted with all the love and care that characterizes his work. The project seemed fated.

The next morning, while plucking blossoms for an infusion we would ferment with a kombucha SCOBY, I put aside many of the tight pink buds and the vibrant and sturdy newly opened blossoms. I salted and pressed them for three days. Such an incongruous treatment of these delicate structures. On the third day, I drained off the modicum of brine that had developed and mixed the blossoms with a small amount of the pear-sake vinegar. They sat in the fridge for a week. I then laid them out to dry on a rack for a day.

A moment of textural give. A hint of spring. Floral then gone. A touch of acid on the tongue.

The salinity lingers.

I repacked them in salt for the future.

Two weeks later I was bottling cherry blossom kombucha. I carefully placed the blossoms, that had fermented in the kombucha, into the bottles with chopsticks. Across from me sat two of my favorite people to come into The Shop, Kyle and Katina Connaughton, who had come in for a visit and were doing a tasting of our tsukemono. Kyle was scheduled to cook at a benefit in New York for the Edible School Yard. He would be cooking with a number of other notable chefs in an effort to raise money so that the city's children may have a garden in their schools that they could sow and reap from during some pretty formative years. Establishing connection. Eighteen years ago, when Alice Waters launched the Edible School Yard Project, the flagship garden was to be located at King Middle School in Berkeley. We had just left the farm and were living with Alex's parents. We had no jobs and our son Keiran was 4 months in utero. Both Alex and I applied for the position of project manager for the fledgling garden. Neither one of us got an interview. Needless to say it has grown way beyond any scope and vision I may have had as a scared and unsettled twenty-five year old. All for the best, as it turns out we had other things to do. Kyle wanted to bring some tsukemono to New York with him. He asked if I had any sakura no shiozuke to give up. I did, and the following week he used them to garnish a sashimi dish, on the other side of the country, for a very worthy cause.

This here is the sweet spot. To make a tiny gesture to preserve a moment in time, all that made it possible and all its possibilities.

300 grams Cherry Blossoms

3 tbsp salt

3 tbsp vinegar

-Kevin

Summer Cucurbit Winter Cucurbit

It is this time of year that we finally become a pickle shop. Without fail, folks will wander into The Shop from January through June, stare blankly at the retail cooler for several minutes, then look up at us and ask, "Do you have any pickles?" For the first few years, it was all we could do to keep from bursting out laughing. They were, of course, looking at a cooler full of pickles. But we know, as you surely know, that they are looking for cucumbers. Cucumis sativus or perhaps Cucumis anguria. From the family Cucurbitaceae. Squash, melons, and gourds.

By far the most fermented cucurbit in the United States is the cucumber. Fermented in a salt water brine, usually with dill and garlic and a variety of spices, it's ubiquitous. The pickled cucumber came to this country with immigrants hailing from Northern Europe through its far Eastern reaches. They are known as Pickles. They are Pickles.

Besides cucumbers, we see a variety of melons and gourds fermented throughout Asia. What we don't tend to see is Winter Squash. Cucurbita Maxima (think buttercups, kabochas, hubbards) and Curcurbita Moschata (think butternuts, and peachy skinned pumpkins). They challenge one of The Shop's  basic rules of thumb: is this vegetable pleasant to eat raw? Winter squashes challenge this rule with total grace. They are by their very nature storage vegetables. Crazy hard shell. Dense flesh. Winter sustenance. So why bother? In our mind's eye when we think of these sugar powerhouses it is of familiar comfort foods—pumpkin pie, butternut squash soup, a kabocha puree. They can be some pretty serious, stick to your ribs, sweet mush. We say that with complete respect, this sweet mush is amazing, and along with scarves and the sound of rain on skylights, it might be our favorite winter reality. And maybe because they are some of our favorite foods, we are drawn to explore them deeper. Often people think that Winter Squash tastes like pumpkin pie mix. What if we take away the cinnamon and the caramelized creaminess and tried to approach them from a different angle? With texture. Cooked, but not. Crunch without the back of your throat starchiness. A whole palette of amber, umber, ochre. Preservation not borne of necessity but of pure curiosity. Luxury.

Made with a Musquee de Provence Pumpkin. When you crack them open they look like giant papayas.  Do not attempt with your common jack-o-lantern, they are far too dry and flavorless.  A crunchy and juicy 2mm julienne works well. They are not at all fibrous. Brine the color and body of orange juice. The scallions for color and crunch. The Espelettes add a well balanced warmth.

Fairytale pumpkin. Enormous pleated flesh colored things that decorate the front of our shop all winter. We set the 1/4-inch thick slices into our favorite barley miso in January 2012. At this point, some eighteen months later, they are great. Part pumpkin, part miso with a fabulous texture.

Again we used the fairytale here. We adore this pickle. The color has remained rich and vibrant. Though thoroughly fermented, there is still a textural snap and crunch that gives you the raw experience. The floral components of the koji and the booziness of sake pair so well with the natural sweetness of the pumpkin.

Standard and reliable. The squash will retain its texture better if each piece is cut with a bit of the rind side intact. This kimchi is one of our perennial fall favorites. We have paired the butternut with various mushrooms and even huitlacoche, always with great results. Note: Shiitakes will often cause accelerated textural breakdown in ferments, so be prepared for things to be a bit softer if you choose to work with them.

Totally seductive, effervescent butterscotch. Pumpkin-Rooibos Kombucha is a warm caramel union of rich, earthy, red Rooibos tea and deep golden Fairytale pumpkin. We join the bright southern light of the high desert of South Africa with the autumnal glow of Northern California.1 It's a delicious beverage.

We'll venture to say that the exploration of winter squashes has been and is one of the most gratifying projects of the shop. Beautiful. Mind-Expansive. Conversation-Forwarding. Unexpected.

-Kevin & Alex

1-Victoria K Fort

What Do Cherry Blossoms Do?

Recently, on a Saturday morning, as I was finishing setting up the stand at the Berkeley Farmers Market, a customer asked me an extremely complex question. The early shoppers tend to be our most regular ones—eager to get first pick at whatever new concoction we might have—and indeed this shopper is what I would consider a great customer. I see her most every week and she purchases an average of 3-4 items: almost always a Nutra Kraut (our super blue-green algae kraut), a seasonal kimchi for her partner (she doesn't do spicy), and usually a Kombucha, most often something with ginger or turmeric. She returns her bottles—although definitely not cleaned—and is generally pleasant.

So, as she's perusing her options on the Kombucha stand (generally first thing in the morning I have about 10 options) she asks in the same tone as she might inquire what time it is, "What do cherry blossoms do?" Cherry Blossom Kombucha was an option that morning. It had never been an option previously and wouldn't again for quite some time. And even then, chances are it wouldn't be as perfect as those two dozen bottle I had with me that morning.

I am presented with an interesting challenge when someone asks a question that I process as ludicrous. Yes, I knew she wanted a direct response as to the precise positive action cherry blossoms would perform within her body: some particular nutrient or enzyme they were particularly well endowed with, some reason why this $6 investment would be sensible. But damn, I was so unable to answer. If I could provide the answer she was searching for, even speak in the same language for a few moments, I could be released from the awkward exchange sooner. But I can't do it; it is the wrong question. Not only does it not make sense, I think the sentiment behind it is flawed. "What do they do?" I responded right back at her, "They're cherry blossoms."

"No, you know, like what are they good for?" she clarified, slightly annoyed that we seemed not to be communicating. "You know...like turmeric is good for inflammation...."

                                            Cherry Blossom SCOBY

Yes, I am a true believer in the food-as-medicine lifestyle. Yes, particular foods are particularly healing for specific conditions. I have dedicated my entire adult life to the study of nourishment. But I believe the inability to view the whole as more than the sum of its parts has become a pathological condition for many in this community, and it is not making anyone healthier.

One weekend this May, we were fortunate enough to receive an outrageous amount of luscious, pink, fragrant cherry blossoms. The next morning we made a concentrated infusion, and introduced—quite possibly the first date for them—a Kombucha SCOBY. Over the next couple weeks, the petals intertwined themselves within that zoogleal mat, gurgling happily, creating in their union what I would describe as the most perfect of fairy garments. At bottling, this brew was mixed with some raw local honey and the bottles, each one with cherry petals chopsticked in, sat in our cave over two more weeks.

You really never know until you open the bottle. You could have done everything to this point "right" and still it could really suck. But from the smell you know. And the smell of the cherry blossom kombucha, bubbles dancing under the nose, encouraged some pretty large smiles. Indeed, sometimes the smell can hold such subtle beauty that you feel like you are being let in on the most fantastic of secrets. The delicate dance of the blossoms as they floated to the surface after the top was released was pure joy and delight to behold. The fairytale dress SCOBY had produced a fairytale flower champagne.

What do cherry blossoms do? I've thought about that question a lot over the last couple of months. Nothing and everything. I believe that resonance holds more power than any specific index of values ever will. Story and alchemy surround you. Pay deep attention to your food and it will feed you deeply.

-Alex

Dessert

There is a word that all of us who make food for people use everyday, when we set plates on tables or slip jars into hands.  Enjoy.

Enjoy.

A conjuring of intent. A prayer. A desire, perhaps, that the work we've created will be appreciated. Deeply.

Our work is understood to be healthy. By that I mean that there are measurable health benefits to consuming our products. Mainly this comes in the form of bacteria. They keep our engine running. They are our engine running.

We fully embraced this from the beginning. The words probiotic bacteria can be found on our label along with Restore & Revitalize and an FDA disclaimer. We know. We understand. People want, people need. We deliver.

I don't think much about the health benefits anymore. Not in any direct or overt way. They are, for certain, a thread that weaves through all of our work. In so much as they spring from that which provides the very action of the work,  their importance cannot be overstated. It is foundational. A given.

What we seek is creative collaboration with these fundamental forces, to give rise to something delicious.

Occasionally when we are reminded, we are caught a little off guard, left a little speechless. Example: At the farmers market a while back, Alex slid a jar of sauerkraut into the hands of a customer and said pleasantly, "Enjoy," to which he gruffly replied, "I don't eat this because I enjoy it, I eat it because it's good for me. It's not ice cream."

Well, he does have a point there. Pickles are not ice cream.

-Kevin

June Garlic

It's all about the timing. The garlic has to be fresh dug. Cloved but not cured. The skins are thick and need to be cut away with a paring knife to get to the tender kernel. From late May through early June we dedicate a lot of time at The Shop to Garlic. The young tender cloves will be buried in our favorite two-year barley miso and left to age, in the jar they will be sold in, for one year in the cave. People often ask me what my favorite product is that we make. I always dismiss this question with the usual, "What? Please! You are asking me to choose amongst my children." But this—June garlic fermented one year in barley miso—this is it. My favorite child.

Over the year the garlic ferments through. Umami rich, they are salty and sweet and pure garlic without the heat and volatiles. I can pop them like candy. They age beautifully. We have vintages going back to 2009 and the depth of flavor seems endless. But the miso itself is the reward for the patient. Garlic has permeated; so much so that you'd be hard pressed to cook this flavor into miso. Delicious.

-Kevin

Home Production: 1996-99

It's been a haul. In the beginning, we set up shop in our small ground floor apartment. There were years of nights spent up so late. So many nights when the baby wouldn’t go down, or stay down, and at two or three or more in the morning under the harsh light of florescence we'd be in our kitchen, with the babe in the backpack snoozing—or more likely not—and there would still be so much more clean up ahead and I would have to leave in a couple of hours to shelve catalog items for retail consumption at a Smith & Hawken garden store. I agree that normally we aren’t able to recall painful moments in too clear of detail as to save us from the trauma of having to relive the episode. Though I have to say, I remember the kitchen so well. The cupboards were this plaid of gray, red, and orange blocks with thin yellow stripes. The linoleum tiles of the kitchen floor were Etch-A-Sketch gray from centuries of traffic buildup. The kitchen was about 90 square feet. It housed the cabinets mentioned above, that only extended far enough along one wall to offer a single basin stainless sink. A sink which, it should be said, was placed into a countertop of yellow and brown leopard print Formica. It also contained a mustard-colored stove with a matching hood, of course. The refrigerator was white and modern, but lacked a water and crushed ice dispenser. We had a small white table from Scandinavian Designs with a hinged leaf, should we be expecting company, and four wooden chairs with rattan seats. It was also partial home to a huge industrial-grade stainless steel reach-in refrigerator, the rest of which extended into the entryway and blocked the front door from opening entirely. A 4' x 2' stainless steel Metro shelving unit sat in front of the kitchen's only window and supported, above the ground (in accordance with health codes floating in a sea of violations), five-gallon stoneware crocks filled with Brassicas in full ferment. There was another Metro shelf  perched on the wall between the big fridge and a doorway. The doorway encompassed a step up to the living room which was floored with parquet and had a very, very low ceiling. The living room housed refrigerator number three. This one no longer functioned and was not plugged in. It was white and had a hole in its side where apparently a bullet had entered never to return. Under the bullet hole there were streaks of rust, looking like blood, running through the letters W S B which were rendered in fat blue marker ink in the style which everyone recognizes as the Gang Font. West Side Berkeley is an appropriately named outfit that contains some of the most ambitious taggers of all the local social clubs. Their initials are scribbled liberally across the town's nooks and crannies. Inside the fridge I had rigged up an incubator switch to a light bulb which kept the compartment within the perfect 30-degree variance of 74 to 104 degrees. We used it to incubate white sushi rice which had been inoculated with the mold spores of Aspergillus oryzae, for koji, which we then set free in a vat of salted soybean mash to make miso. We used it to inoculate soybeans themselves with Bacillus subtilis natto or Rhizopus oligosporus for natto and tempeh respectively. Next to the gangsta fridge was a wooden warehouse pallet which was average in size and on the ground supporting vessels full of  fermentation. On the other side was the koji table, where the koji was processed once incubation was complete.  There was so much controlled rot occurring that, with the nearly palpable energy of transformation, there seemed to always be a buzz, felt above the hum of the fridges and the drone of the florescent bulbs above. Felt even above the buzz of insufficient stereophonic that Bob Edwards' voice echoed out of, carried on the first broadcast out from D.C., earlier than most truck drivers would catch. We were mostly slumped over ourselves by this time in the evening. That is except, of course, for the sleepless young one. I wonder if the energy of the house, due to the alchemical atmosphere, caused the babe to be mostly awake unless in motion for the first two years of his life. Or perhaps it was us clanging around every night until the witching hour. So we would be there amongst all that in the kitchen and the boy would be on my back in the Tough Traveler pack. I recall feeling stunned, like in the headlights, with all of this around me. There I was sifting around in drifts of shredded cabbage on the linoleum, the light gleaming off the stainless all around, and it's later then I can feel, and I’m madly wiping at the deposits of crushed Cruciferae in the crevice of the fold down leaf of the white table. And you know what?  NPR can be so disconcerting at this time, feeling like this, with Bob Edwards saying, “Good morning—NATO has launched air-strikes in Kosovo—I’m Bob Edwards and this is Morning Edition,” and then the music comes up, and B.J. Leiderman gives us a rise and shine.

-Kevin

Everybody Kahm Down!

It's not mold, it's yeast, commonly called Kahm, which is a sort of catch-all term for a variety of yeasts that can form a film, or pellicle, on top of ferments.1 It's harmless. No one is going to get hurt here. It's alright, no need to panic. It's incredibly common. It can, however, negatively affect taste. Our lid system prevents the yeast from coming in contact with the ferment. You can just scrape it off. Covering your ferment with cheesecloth makes it easier to remove.

Dehydrate It

Change the form. Vary the use. Expand your notions.

Beet & Fennel Brine

Put it in a Shaker - Sprinkle on Soups - Stir into Stews - Dry Rub Meat - Top your Popcorn - Lime Pickle Hollandaise

Spice up your Marinade - Sauerkraut Leather - Rim a Cocktail - Add it to a Dressing - Toast on a Bun - Season your Fries

Fermented Chili Powder & Flakes

Make a Simple Syrup - Replace Salt - Add to Pasta Dough - Dust Chocolate - Flavor Sauces - Lick off Fingers

Season your Burger - Make a Dip - Add Complexity to Chili - Keep by the Grill - Instant Broth

Spice up Mayonnaise - Whisk into Batter - Coat your Crackers & Chips - Add to Pickling Spices - Sprinkle on Deviled Eggs

Lime Pickle Powder

Whip into Butter - Toss into Salads - Sprinkle on your Pizza - Add to Guacamole - Add to Batters - Season Nuts

-Kevin

Umeboshi

Every year in early June, after the last of the spring rains have fallen and the fruit of Prunus mume have begun to blush, we head over to the North side of town where a long time customer has a tree. Ume, the fruit of the Prunus mume tree, is commonly referred to as a plum.  However once you hold the fruit  in your hand and feel the soft fuzz and take in the strong sweet fragrance you might sense that this is much more closely related to an apricot, which it is.

The tree is small and sturdy. It is planted up against a backyard tool shed and with one of us on the shed roof and one on the ground we strip the tree of fruit, in one short hour filling two 5 gallon buckets.

Back at the Shop the fruit is divided into those that are blushing and those that are solid green. The blushing fruit is salted and used for Umeboshi.

Salted Blushing Ume

The green are steeped in Mugi  Shochu, a distilled alcohol made from barley, and mixed with sugar to create Umeshu. This  alcohol maceration process will take the better part of a year.

Mugi Umeshu

The salted Ume are then packed into the stoneware crocks that we used to ferment our sauerkraut in,  years and years ago. They are impractical for the volume we do now but we have kept a few around for small projects.  We press the Ume by placing a plate over the top and weigh it down with a bag full of pebbles. We allow it to sit for several weeks to create a brine.

Ume Brine

After a few weeks of pressing the Ume has released some liquid and formed a brine.We then drain the brine, setting it aside for later, and lay the Ume out onto racks to dry for about two weeks.

Drying Ume

We add Red Shiso (Perilla frutescens) to the Ume brine. This is what gives the Ume its color.

Shiso in Ume Brine

After drying, we pack the Ume back into a crock and add the Shiso infused Brine. They will stay in this crock under pressure for several months.

Ume Packed with Shiso & Brine

Usually we allow our Ume to ferment under weight for about six months. After that time, we take them out and age them in jars. We have vintages going back to 2008.

So here's the question. Why are we not doing this with other stone fruit? On our list to try in up and coming years: Apricots, Peaches, Nectarines, Pluots, Plums, and Cherries

-Kevin

The Shop

Some customers are confused when they come in. "Where's the shop?"

When we say Shop we mean Workshop.

Sure you can buy shit here,

But this is where we get it done.

-Kevin

Burdock Kasuzuke

Kasu. Sake kasu. Sake Lees. Dregs.

Tapping into waste streams and re-purposing for deliciousness.

After a tank of sake has run the course of its fermentation—anywhere from 18 to 32 days—what remains is a white mixture of sake, rice solids, and yeast. This mixture, known as the moromi, is pressed to separate the sake from the suspended solids. There are several methods of pressing the sake out, leaving compressed rice solids, or lees, behind. This is Kasu.

Larger sake producers extract the sake from the lees by machine and the kasu comes out in thin dry sheets called itakasu. Smaller producers may press their sake by hand using a wooden box called a fune, which has a lid that gets cranked down on the sake mash, or moromi, which has been placed in small canvas bags. This method will yield a kasu that is moist and chunky called teshibon or namakasu.

Sakekasu

Kasuzuke or vegetables pickled in kasu, are said to have originated in the Kansai region of Japan as early as twelve hundred years ago. The first vegetables known to be fermented in kasu were white melon and were named shiru-kasu-zuke or Nara-zuke. Later, the technique would used with cucumbers, eggplants, and uri or bitter melon. It was produced primarily by Buddhist monks and used by Samurai for sustenance in wartime and winter. During the Edo period of the 17th century, sake producers promoted the use of kasu widely. Not long after, kasuzuke would become a mainstay in the ever expanding repertoire of Japanese tsukemono.

We are fortunate to be located just blocks from Takara Sake one of the largest producers of sake in the United States. We have a long standing relationship with Takara, and after each pressing of their Certified Organic Ginjo Grade Junmai Nama Sake, they put aside about 150 lbs of kasu for us. The kasu has been pressed mostly dry at the factory and has a slightly sticky putty-like texture. Kasu is stored in the refrigerator and the cold makes it stiff and a little unyielding. We allow it warm in a bowl on the counter for the day and as it warms it becomes much more pliable and easy to work with. We knead salt and sugar into it until the dry sheets form a thick sticky paste. We then bury vegetables that have been salt pressed for two days into the paste . The vegetables ferment from three months up to a year or more. The result is a delightful and unique pickle with a distinct sake taste, quite unlike anything found in Western pickling traditions.

Typically we intend to ferment our kasuzuke for 12 months. With this in mind we have found that a ratio of 10:3:1  kasu:sugar:salt, works well for us. Those ratios will be adjusted down for shorter term ferments of vegetables that are more tender. One of our favorite kasu pickles is burdock.

Burdock in kasu

Burdock. Arctium lappa. Gobo in Japan. It is the long tap root of a thistle. Dark and woody, it is deep in earthy overtones and slightly sweet. We wash the burdock well and press it at 6% salt for two days. The burdock is spiraled into a vessel and layered between the kasu-sugar-salt mixture. In the initial weeks of fermentation there will be a fair amount of carbon dioxide released and pockets will appear. To combat this, and insure optimal kasu to burdock contact, we weigh the ferment down.

Our burdock ferments for 12-18 months. One of our longer ferments, it needs that duration for the dense, sturdy root to ferment clean through. It is a testament to the hardy strength of burdock that after a full fermentation it retains most of its flavor and texture. Though the sake and koji permeate, it is still astonishingly earthy and woody.

For years we enjoyed this pickle sliced thinly on a bias. Wood chips, I called them. Wonderful, flavorful wood chips. Then I introduced it to the microplane. Burdock kasuzuke loves the microplane. A melt on your tongue snow of sweet earth.

Burdock kasuzuke, Fresh Hijiki, Scallion

Gingko Nuts: Two Ways

These pickled gingko nuts were initially inspired by a visit from Mike Ryan, the Chef de Cuisine at Elements, in Princeton New Jersey. Mike is such an amazing, creative guy. He and Chef Scott Anderson are doing some of the most exciting work with fermentation in fine dining today. They are the first restaurant that I have seen to incorporate kombucha into their dishes, rather than it being relegated to beverage status. They are creating hard cheeses out of almonds, fermenting them with Rejuvelac, and hardening them with transglutaminase. They are aging pork loin coated in uni paste. Really cool shit. Mike came into The Shop one afternoon and we hung out for a while tasting ferments and trading ideas. We were trying various misozuke, turnips, June garlic, and a three-year fermented pumpkin. Mike proposed fermenting chestnuts. I countered with gingko nuts. A couple of days later I started these and he started chestnuts.

I purchased some fresh gingko nuts and layered one batch in a two-year barley miso. The other batch I layered in a sake kasu that had burdock fermenting in it for 18 months. This kasu is beautiful. There is a heady aroma of sake, koji, and rich geosmin from the burdock. The kasu, after having a vegetable fermenting in it for that duration, is teeming with enhanced microbial activity. It is a superior product, ideal for short term ferments, especially proteins. I found that after two months both batches were quite delightful. The outer layer of the nut still had some resistance and density, with a slight chalkiness, while the centers had become a wonderfully flavored jelly. An explosion of flavor and texture in the mouth. Last I heard, Mike's chestnuts were still fermenting. I imagine they may take a year or more.

I know that this is going to lead to a whole miso & kasu fermented nut program at The Shop. Stay tuned.

-Kevin

Kiriboshi

When our 16-year-old son came home from spending spring break on a class trip to China, he—of course—brought back pickles. A barely fermented chili paste, strong, garlicky, and salty. And a jar of pickled turnips. The chili paste was pretty unexciting but the turnips were to die for. They were hardly brined, with a nice heat from chili and an amazing chewy texture. We immediately wanted to try to replicate it.

We decided we would use daikon, because we had a bunch around the shop, and because its size lent itself to a long, noodle-like julienne. We laid them out on a rack to dry and the next morning found small shriveled confetti. The daikon had lost so much moisture it would blow off the rack as you walked by. Not what we wanted. We tried to air dry the daikon whole before processing it. Fail. We tried several more approaches, always ending up with the same thing.

The Japanese call this Kiriboshi. We knew of Kiriboshi but had never prepared or eaten it. We kept it around while we rethought our approach. Then came lunch.

Alex decided to prepare the Kiriboshi one day for our staff meal. She soaked it in a light dashi, simmered it with hijiki, and served it with some sweet brown rice. At the first bite the light bulbs started flashing. Maybe the turnips in our favorite Chinese pickle hadn't been dehydrated to that amazing texture, perhaps they had been re-hydrated to it. Now we can start.

-Kevin

Everything Matters

Winter 1997, San Fransisco, 3:30 am.

The early morning hours are always dark and always cold, arrestingly cold in the enormous coolers of Veritable Vegetable, an organic produce wholesaler in the warehouse district of east San Francisco. I am staring at a wall of cabbage boxes. I will spend the next hour—shivering and dodging hand-trucks and forklifts marauding about—contemplating quality. The patient and gracious sales rep has set out eight boxes for me to inspect. I will caress, squeeze, cut, and chew on one cabbage out of each box. I am searching. I am hoping. The cabbage should be firm and dense. They should be sweet with a subtle undertone of bitter and spice. They should have a small core extending an inch or two up through the center. If the cabbage I try is not representative of the rest of the boxes, that will suck. If I get the cabbage home and Alex disagrees with my assessment, that will suck. There may not be any that will do. If not, I will go home empty handed. We will not be making sauerkraut today.

Thankfully a memory.

Eventually, we received seed catalogs from growers like Reeds and Johnny's, as well as from various heirloom seed-savers exchanges, and Alex would spend late nights pouring over them. We selected promising cultivars and had the seeds sent to Tim Mueller at Riverdog Farm, who grew them out for us. Cabbages sold as "Kraut Cabbage" are no good for us. These varietals are not only dense, which is good, but they are dry, which is not. Selected for their ability to withstand long periods of cold storage, they are intended, presumably, to be shredded and water brined. We want them as close to harvest time as possible. They must have a high moisture content in order to create a proper brine when salted. Density is directly related to our yield. If the cabbage is too young or is bolting, the heads will be loose and ill-formed. There are practical considerations for the farmer as well. In the main, folks don't want to buy huge cabbage. "What do I do with all of that?" The cabbage must, of course, grow well in the farm's micro-climate and must have a cost effective yield. So it's not all up to us. This is collaboration. It took years of trial and error to find what works for us and our farmer partners. That said, we are year-round sauerkraut makers and we must make the best out of the inevitable fluctuations in cabbage shape, size, weight, density, moisture content, sweetness, sulfuric-ness, and latent bacterial profiles. Yes, no doubt we spend our work in quest of perfection. The whole body tingles when something is, as we say, "textbook." Funny that: which textbook would that be? And yes, sometimes things are just OK.

We are asked if we teach classes. We don't. There are many reasons for this, chief among them is that not everyone sees themselves as educators. We don't. We find it difficult to speak generally about the process. Fermentation is aflame at the moment and there are workshops galore to teach the basics. There are many great books out there. At the Top of the List, of course, are the two, now essential books, by Sandor Katz: Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation. Sandor is a fearless enthusiast. He does a brilliant job of demystifying the processes of fermentation and sets the proper tone of calm curiosity. Our approach is at once identical to Sandor's and the exact opposite.

Where The Ends Meet
Alex and Sandor Katz
Q & A with Audience
October 2012 Book Signing
At The Shop

Fermentation happens. This is no bumper sticker quip. It does. It is here: in us, on us, and all around us. From life's true beginning 'til it ends. So despite my tendency to wax poetic about the wonder of alchemy, there is nothing out of the ordinary happening here. It is a point of fact that, if asked about salt amounts, Sandor may say that he can't answer that. "In most ferments, including vegetables, salting can be done to taste, without any need for measuring." The amount of salt doesn't really matter. It will ferment. You will get a sour. You will have pickles. Alex, if asked the same question, will also say that she can't tell you. For the exact opposite reason. It matters too much. I know we often come across as being coy, evasive, or protective of trade secrets, but there are so many things to weigh and consider before the salt and sweat. The vegetable type, the time of year, the location of the farm, the maturity of the vegetable, the moisture content, the varietal, the cut of the vegetable, the intended fermenting time. It all matters. and matters very much. To us. It is important to acknowledge that we are really advocating for the same thing: cultivating intuition. Intuition cannot be taught or bought. It can only be earned through work and attention.

-Kevin

Precious

Years ago I attended a lecture given by the renowned author and horticulturist Ann Lovejoy. During the Q & A session Ann was asked by an audience member what her secret to success in the garden was. "Killing thousands of plants," was her reply.

Best not be to attached to the outcome of your ferments. This is not to say that you should adopt an air of casual indifference or irreverence. Surely you should not. You must always approach your work with care and attention. You must set an intention for a positive outcome. But fermentation can be a cruel mistress, indifferent to your desires. It is best to shield your heart from disappointment so great it leads to inaction. Giving up.

We are all aware of what fear of failure does to our creativity. Our lively spirits.

We are often asked about ferments going bad or wrong. Bad? Wrong? Bad for who? The ferment? I guarantee you the ferment is doing just fine. Populations rise and fall. There is conversion, action, liveliness. Bad for you? Were you not given information? Did you not learn something? Were you paying attention?

Remain open to possibility. Regard the process with curiosity and awe. Sometimes the outcome is truly precious. The collaboration between you and the unseen world can yield something so stunning in its elegance, that its beauty leaves you breathless.

Saffron Kombucha