Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

[existentialmutt]

Michael Pollan, author of the awesome Omnivore's Dilemma, had a new essay published this weekend in the New York Times. It deals with the culture of nutrition, which is a topic that's particularly poignant to me. You see, in the past year I've become an official mostly-vegetarian, worked for organic farms for nothing but vegetables, experimented

Comments

[greensinger]

These are all themes that have come up repeatedly on this trip. My friend Ben homebrews. And I got to meet this guy at Short Mountain:

http://www.chelseagreen.com/search?query=Sandor+Ellix+Katz

I think he takes it a step further than Pollan, and gets into some exciting (food) countercultural details. His Wild Fermentation is as close to a fermented foods bible as I've ever seen.

[existentialmutt]

You met Sandorkraut? Cool! I love Wild Fermentation-- especially his recipe for yogurt:

Heat the milk up to 180 degrees, or if you don't have a thermometer, till it starts to bubble a bit. Then let it cool back down to 110. For the thermometerless, that's when you can stick your hand in it and it feels like you could leave it there for a while.

[quiggles]

He is doing a workshop on fermenting things (fancy that!) at the Organic Growers School here in March. I know you said he's really inarticulate. . . do you think I should sign up for it anyway? (Make kraut with the Master?!)

[existentialmutt]

He was a little flaky and rambling, but not completely inarticulate. Plus, that was a talk. He'd probably be a lot better in a hands-on workshop. Go for it!

tangential question

[existentialmutt]

Hey, so Marvin, I'm thinking of working on a farm in Maine a bit up the coast from Acadia, and it occurred to me that you might be able to answer an important question: How's the contra dancing around there? Other impressions of folk music scene, revolutionary environmentalist culture, etc would also be appreciated.