Tomorrow I am headed down to Mexico. Goals: to read content that’s longer than a recipe, feel the sun and warmth on my body, listen to the ocean and pay heed to its healing wisdoms, to do cartwheels in the sand, to eat buckets of buttery avocado, tikin xic, sikil pak and sopa de mariscos, drink refeshing coconut water and good tequila, and commit to daily practice of hamacasana – the ultimate yoga pose – which translates to “sitting my butt in a hammock while doing jack squat”. While away, I am doubly delighted to have friends Kari Moore and Herb Brosnan kick off a new feature at the blog. Although we share similar sensibilities in sourcing, cooking and eating whole, real foods, Kari and Herb bring to the table additional cache and breadth of knowledge derived from their many years of forging deep roots and close connections with Ohio’s farming and agricultural communities. Dear readers, I am pleased, grateful and proud to present Kari and Herb, Messin’ Up the Kitchen With…

Sometimes a good idea just needs a little nudge. Heidi’s call for a guest blogger this week did just that. A long winter walk in the snow was required to ponder what might interest Heidi’s fabulous readers. Two miles in ideas started bubbling up like a soup pot ready to hit a rolling boil. One idea sort of gelled as a way to share the potluck of great cooking I frequently stumble upon here in Cleveland. I’m calling it Messin’ Up the Kitchen With…and from time to time, we’ll visit the kitchens of local cooks like you and me. I’m honored to hatch the idea here at HeidiRobb.com with a glimpse into our own humble kitchen. Future posts will feature other kitchens and a peek at the intriguing dishes, recipes and culinary projects Cleveland cooks have bubbling away. So, what’s cookin’ in your kitchen? Perhaps it’s a seasonal dish; inspiration from a favorite cookbook, cooking style or tradition; perfection of a family favorite; or simply that every day tradition of putting good food on your table. Let us know, perhaps we can spend time Messin’ Up the Kitchen with you. For now, we’ll be sharing Messin’ Up the Kitchen posts here from time to time. If there’s enough interest, heck, maybe we’ll even start our own blog. Cheers to Heidi for the inspiration, the opportunity, and the nudge to serve it forth.  And welcome to our lively, little kitchen.

Messin’ Up the Kitchen with… Kari & Herb
Homely, delicious and lively.  That might be the best way to describe our kitchen this week.

The 110-year old house we inhabit has one, big, ominous, grande-dame of a project remaining – the kitchen renovation that we’ve put off for about ten years now. In spite of its humble appearance and our frustration with improper lighting, malfunctioning cabinets, and inadequate counter space, our kitchen continues to crank out some wonderful, nutritious, and at times, inspired food, proving again and again that it doesn’t take granite countertops, 400 linear feet of cabinetry, and halogen task lighting to serve up delicious, wholesome, real food.

Recently, it seems that our kitchen has come alive in a whole new way. The winter months always seem to be particularly productive for us when it comes to cooking. Cold Cleveland winters allow us a bit more time for cooking, enjoying meals with friends and family, and learning a few new things in the kitchen. We’ve sometimes declared a theme for our winter culinary explorations. Some past celebrations have included The Winter of the Potato, The Winter of the Bean, The Winter of Smoked Meats, etc. This winter is no exception. Without a doubt it’s officially The Winter of Live Fermented Foods.
Lacto-fermentation is the process of converting the starches and sugars in vegetables and fruit to lactic acid by friendly lactic-acid producing bacteria. Lacto-fermentation has been used to preserve foods for centuries. It’s what makes foods like real un-pasteurized sauerkraut and pickles so tangy and tasty.

Our introduction to fermentation came about by happy accident about a year ago while attending the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s annual conference. It was there, we first met Warren Taylor, Snowville Creamery proprietor and enthusiastic, dairy evangelist who was touting the flavor and nutritional benefits of kefir, a tangy, tasty, fermented milk beverage similar to yogurt. Kefir contains loads of friendly bacteria that support a healthy immune system. Soon after, we obtained live kefir grains from a friend and began our own kefir fermentation. I was also lucky enough to attend a wild fermentation workshop led by Sandor Katz which provided further fermented inspiration.

The most challenging part of fermenting foods, dairy ferments, in particular, is letting go of years of ingrained fear and distrust of un-refrigerated dairy products. Once you get over this and realize that you’re not going to kill yourself or your family, you can embrace and appreciate the fact that fermented dairy products have provided people around the world with a delicious and nutritious food supply for centuries.

Making kefir at home is simple. We’ve followed the kefir instructions of Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation , and others. All you need is kefir grains, good quality milk, and a clean vessel to ferment it in. There are definitely tricks you can learn to produce a kefir that best suits your personal preferences (thicker, milder, etc.). Most of these tricks involve speeding up or slowing down the fermentation process by adjusting the temperature. But it’s definitely not a complex or time-consuming process. This has me wondering why so many people choose to help pay Jamie Lee Curtis’ mortgage when they could be making a far superior product with local ingredients in their own kitchen in about five minutes at a fraction of the cost.

We keep a batch of homemade kefir going all the time. We make ours with Snowville Creamery milk produced from happy, healthy cows that graze on green, Ohio grass. We enjoy kefir with granola for breakfast, in salad dressings, in place of mayo on sandwiches and mixed into our favorite soups. This week it was a lovely addition to a Curried Parsnip Soup. Kefir has been a wonderful addition to our cooking repertoire and has affirmed for us that fermented foods are not, in fact, weird or dangerous, but flavorful and culturally significant components of a great meal. The positive impact of fermented foods to our immune system is just the icing on the cake.

This week, there seems to be a convergence of several live culture projects going on in our kitchen. Earlier this winter, we happened upon a bounty of winter-harvested cabbage which inspired our first batch of sauerkraut. Today marks Day 24 of its fermentation process which could go on for another few weeks or indefinitely, depending on how tangy we decide to take it. It sits silently in a quiet corner of our kitchen fermenting away. We dip into the jar every so often and pull out a bowl-full to enjoy on sandwiches or alongside grilled pork chops or sausages. A recent epiphany also involved homemade pasta with sauerkraut and fresh feta. Kraut is yet another simple way to preserve the season’s bounty and add great flavor to your winter cooking.

A recent purchase of beef brisket from Aaron Miller at Miller Grassfed , inspired Herb to embark on making pastrami this week (you guessed it, pastrami is another fermented food). With Michael Rhulman’s Charcuterie book as guide, Herb started the process on Monday evening by making the brine. The brisket will bathe in brine until Thursday, then enjoy a light smoke followed by low, slow cooking. With luck, our pastrami will be ready for some festive, weekend sandwich-making with friends.

Our refrigerator has come alive too with other fermented foods that we knew we loved but didn’t fully recognize their contribution to a flavorful and healthy diet. Aged, sharp raw milk cheddar, miso, kimchi, beer, wine, and more. Hello, fermentation = flavor people! Even that innocent loaf of sourdough bread sitting on the counter awaiting tonight’s cheese course is full of friendly fermented bacteria.

In our increasingly pre-packaged, hermetically sealed, sanitized world, these simple fermented foods are an important way to feed our flora, offering replenishment of the 500 different species of bacteria that live with us. Who can’t love that?  We’ve recently heard incredible tales of health and vitality from amazing people like Jerry Brunetti , the folks at Weston A. Price Foundation , and others. It’s encouraging that more and more people seem to be discovering the traditional wisdom of real food. What remains unbelievable is that so many in the mainstream seem reluctant to believe that centuries-old foodways are somehow unsafe or suspect. I probably wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t spent the last three to four years eating so well and staying so healthy after introducing these things into my own diet.

It feels like we’re in the process of learning how to eat all over again in our humble little kitchen with new tricks we’ve picked up from all the local farmers, foodies, and fermentation enthusiasts we’ve come to know.  When I embarked on a career in local, sustainable food, it was mostly for the flavor, economic and environmental benefits that it provides. I had no real idea about the immense benefits to my health that would ensue from this way of eating. What a lovely and welcome surprise.

Of course, every week isn’t like this week. We enjoy plenty of pizza nights and burrito binges. But, without a whole lot of effort, we’ve made real food a part of our lives and part of our kitchen. And once we tasted it, there’s just been no going back. The kefir and kraut will keep on fermenting. And come spring and summer we’ll be ready to grow, pickle, and ferment the next season’s harvest.
Happily, we’ve finally found a builder and we’re preparing to embark upon a modest kitchen renovation project this spring. As design discussions continue we’re considering a place of honor for our new kitchen staple, the German sauerkraut crock. In the meantime, our little kitchen remains a lively hub of good eating that keeps us happy, healthy, and energized during these cold, dark days of winter, just as kitchens around the world have done for centuries.

So, what’s happening in your kitchen this week? Leave a comment below, or drop us a line at karimoore55@gmail.com and let us know.

About Kari and Herb:
Kari Moore is a local, sustainable food enthusiast and founder of FarmShare Ohio , a fresh, locally grown produce delivery service. She also serves as co-leader of Slow Food Northern Ohio . She cooks in Cleveland Heights with her husband Herb Brosnan. When Herb’s not making Swiss cheese out of steel, he can be found tending his smoker, pickling turnips, and listening to really loud rock and roll.

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“I get by with a little help from my friends” has been the theme song of my life during this past week. In addition to Kari and Herb, special thanks to Jennifer Jenny Jen-Jen Sorg, Michelle, Kyle,  Deb Mayer and always, always Karen. Sometimes it takes a village to raise a Heidi – or at least to get one out of town.