The Bee’s Wrap is made with organic cotton muslin, beeswax, jojoba oil, and tree resin. The antibacterial properties of the beeswax and jojoba oil help to keep food fresh and allow you to use the Bee’s Wrap again and again. It is not recommended for meat. Wash your Bee’s Wrap in COLD water with a mild dish soap.

Bee’s Wrap is a great alternative to plastic wrap for food storage. It is an easy way to do something good for the environment and yourself. Bee’s Wrap is an old fashioned solution that feels miraculous in the modern world!

In this package you will receive 3 wraps- 1 small (7″x8″), 1 medium (10″x11″), 1 large (13″x14″)

A note from the makeers of Bee’s Wrap:

Good food has always been central to our home life here in Vermont.  I grow and preserve most of our vegetables, we milk goats, raise sheep, pigs and chickens.  Our family life revolves around the garden and kitchen.  But all of this food needed to be kept fresh and growing concerns about our environment and the health safety of plastic, made plastic no longer a viable option for food storage.

This is where Bee’s Wrap enters. Bee’s Wrap is fabric infused with beeswax, jojoba oil and tree resin.  This combination makes for the perfect alternative to plastic for food storage.  The warmth of your hands molds the Bees Wrap to the top of a bowl or dish- use for leftovers or for taking a dish to a potluck. Wrap a piece of cheese, the end of a cucumber, or half of an onion to keep fresh.  The Bee’s Bread Wrap is large enough to wrap a loaf of bread, keeping it soft and fresh.  The antibacterial properties of beeswax and jojoba oil help keep food fresh and allow the Bee’s Wrap to be used again and again.

Bee’s Wrap is an old fashioned solution that feels miraculous in our modern world.  We hope you find Bee’s Wrap as useful and enjoyable to use as we do!

My very favorite Bay Area gardening book is Golden Gate Gardening, a work of genius written by Pam Peirce.  I love the book so much that when I speak to serious SF Bay Area gardeners and find that they don’t own it I’m shocked.  I reference it anytime I plant something new and frequently before harvesting a new crop.  If you’re growing veggies here in our climate, I consider it a must-have, which is why I’m going to give one away this month.

Here’s why you need Golden Gate Gardening:  The climate in the San Francisco Bay area is unlike any other in the US.  If you’ve ever tried to plant in your Bay Area garden based on the advice on the back of a seed packet, you might have an idea of why a book like this could be helpful.  Not only does the book list important things to know about seed germination, area-specific pests and harvest tips, it also details when to plant for our area and lists varieties the author has found to be successful here.

Here’s how to win it:  All you have to do is leave a comment to this post with your most compelling garden question, best Bay Area gardening tip, funniest/strangest garden story, favorite gardening old wives’ tale or anything else you think might amuse/delight us.

Comment as many times as you like in as many of the above topics as you please and we’ll choose one winning comment from the batch.  More comments obviously give you more opportunities to win the prize.

We’ll accept entries through Monday, April 30th at 6pm pacific and we’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 1st.

Thanks for playing and good luck!

Gorgeous hand-made fermenting crock

Fermentation is an age-old practice that may date back to as many as 12,000 years ago during the Paleolithic period.

That said, it’s a practice that holds as much value today as it did thousands of years ago.  Not only is fermentation a time-honored way to preserve the harvest or create a mind-altering beverage, it’s also a healthful and natural way to boost the nutritional value of the food.

History:

According to Sandor Katz the author of “Wild Fermentation”, early methods of fermentation may date back to as early at the Paleolithic era, 12,000 years ago based upon evidence found in cave paintings.  Historians tend to agree that tea has been fermented in China for at least 3,000 years, possibly longer.  Ancient Mayas fermented honey and used it as an enema and cacao beans have been fermented in South America as long as 2,600 years ago.

It’s clear fermentation has been popular cross-culturally for thousands of years but it wasn’t until the mid-1800′s when Louis Pasteur identified bacteria that scientists really began to understand what was happening during fermentation.  During Roman times, Pliny the Elder attempted to explain fermentation as spontaneous generation, or something that just “magically” appeared under the right circumstances, much like (sorry for this analogy) maggots in meat or rats in grain.  Despite their lack of understanding for how it worked, over thousands of years, societies discovered the immense nutritional benefits of fermentation.  In 1770, Captain James Cook was actually recognized for preventing scurvy over the spam of a 27-month trip at sea by feeding 60 barrels of kraut to his men!  It was the perfect at-sea sustenance, healthful and well-preserved, though I have no doubts that the last serving of kraut was probably a bit funky!

Thanks to Pasteur, we now know that fermentation is the action of micro-organisms on plant or animal matter.  Many food items from everyday goods to luxury items are fermented.  Here is a partial list of common fermented foods, some of which may surprise you:

Chocolate
Cheese
Bread
Coffee
Wine
Beer
Miso, soy sauce
Kimchi, pickles & sauerkraut of course

Culture:

Many cultures are known for their own specific fermentations and palatability is not necessarily agreed upon across cultures.  For example, sauerkraut is very common in Germany, while Kimchi is the spicy Korean version of fermented cabbage.  In Sweden fish is treated with lye then fermented for several weeks to create the traditional lutfisk, a delicacy many Americans would simply rather do without.  The slimy Japanese fermentation natto is just beginning to gain traction in the San Francisco Bay Area, thanks to some local natto small-scale producers and restaurants.  The French could do without natto but rather salivate over their own bizarre fermentation in the form of gym-sock-scented cheese.  And anyone whose ever walked a night market in Taiwan is familiar with the pervasive, sickening smell of stinky tofu, a delicacy to be enjoyed by only the most trained palate.  Fermented fish sauce may date back to the 7th Century B.C and even catsup started out as a fermented food according to this Smithsonian article.

In some ways, I think it’s refreshing to know that in this globalized world there are still things done in some cultures that totally gross out other cultures.  According the Katz’ book, Annie Hubert, the former director of France’s National Scientific Research Center was quoted in Slow Food International’s periodical as saying,  “The concept of ‘rottenness’ belongs to the cultural rather than the biological sphere.”  She added, “The term defines a point where a food becomes unsuitable for consumption according to criteria associated with taste, presentation, and the concept of hygiene in different human societies.”  The memory of a little Taiwanese lady gobbling down stinky tofu with relish while I gagged into my sleeve has me convinced she’s onto something.

Nutrition:

While some fermentations are only a stage in the process before cooking the item such as is the case with chocolate and bread, other ferments are best served raw in their most alive and nutritious stage, such as miso, yogurt and sauerkraut.  Though these items are frequently pasteurized commercially, making them at home can be a cost-effective way to enjoy them while retaining their nutritive qualities.

Here are several of the many benefits of consuming unpasteurized fermented foods:

Micro-organisms in fermented foods help pre-digest our food into a form of nutrients our bodies can absorb.  For example, soybeans are fairly indigestible in their raw form though fermentation renders them much more easily digestible.  Similarly, many people lack the enzymes in the their body to digest the lactose in milk, though after transforming into lactic acid by making yogurt renders it digestible.

Increased nutrition – fermentation creates new nutrients like B vitamins like B12, otherwise unavailable from plant sources and very important to nutrition, especially for vegans and vegetarians

Human bodies host 100 trillion bacteria.  Because microorganisms present in live, fermented foods colonize our intestines with digestion-friendly bacteria, the introduction of a more dangerous strain of bacteria becomes less dangerous.  The ‘friendly’ bacteria stake their claim in your body and are fairly unfriendly to anything else that attempts to take over.  Dangerous bacteria are generally attacked and destroyed before they have an opportunity to do much harm.  In this way, our immune systems are constantly trained and primed to fight unfriendly invaders.

Food Preservation:

As alluded to above, fermentation has been used as a common method of food preservation cross-culturally for a very long time.  The process of fermentation may produce either alcohol (in the case of wine), lactic acid (in the case of sauerkraut) or acetic acid (in the case of vinegar), all of which are natural preservatives, allowing food to be stored for a longer period of time before refrigeration became common.

Are you convinced yet that fermentation is the secret to a delicious scurvy-free life?  So how hard is it to start fermenting at home?

SO EASY!  Here’s the gist, and i don’t mean to be cute, but it really is this simple: cut up food and add salt.  Wait a week.  Eat.  Seriously.  That is all (mostly).  Just in case you don’t believe me, though, you can find a recipe for simple sauerkraut here.

Fermentation line-up

Fermenting cabbage into a cultural delicacy such as sauerkraut or kimchi is an age-old practice that is still appreciated today; indeed is experiencing a renaissance of sorts.   The good folks at Cultured in Berkeley plus the popularity of a class we’re teaching at Workshop in SF on April 28 can attest to this new-found love of sour things.  How could we help but be inspired to write this post on how to make delicious fermented kraut and kimchi?

Perhaps you read our earlier post about fermentation and the benefits of raw, fermented foods or maybe you’ve just always known you love kraut with your dogs.  Either way, home fermenting is way easier than you think, is a project that can be ignored for weeks, and yields delicious results!

While it’s true that the basis of fermenting is adding salt to cut up meat or produce, submerging under brine then weighting and waiting, there are lots of ways to finesse the process to yield superior results.  Here are our recommendations.

Some tools you’ll need and others you’ll want:

• 

  Gorgeous hand-made fermenting crock

  Fermentation Vessel – fermentation can happen in almost any type of wide-mouthed container.  We love this gorgeous hand-made crock, created by an American artist and endorsed by Sandor Katz himself, but don’t limit yourself to just the beautiful receptacles.  You can easily use a wide-mouthed glass mason jar, a deep dish or even a plastic food-grade bucket, though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the risk of BPA-leaching when using plastic.  For a simpler and more economical option, check out this inexpensive DIY fermenting set made from  a mason jar and ReCAP lid.

• Sharp knife or mandoline – I personally think that finely chopped cabbage and other produce make the best kraut so make sure your chef’s knife is sharp or you have a nice mandoline, which make things easier as long as you can avoid chopping your own fingers off.
• 

  Tamper for packing cabbage down tightly

  Tamper  - This is a tool you’ll use to firmly pack down your kraut, drawing out its natural juices and submerging it under the brine.  It’s not totally required since we assume you can make your own personal tamper out of a fist but this is a tool I find incredibly handy in most cases and actually quite necessary when you’re fermenting in wide-mouthed mason jars which you can’t fit a fist into without recruiting a child (and who wants their fingers in your food?).

• Follower and weight – a follower an object that fits within your fermenting vessel to hold the kraut submerged under the brine.  it can be fancy like the one that comes with [our hand-made crock] or it can be humble like these smaller jars filled with water (the weight) which we’ve set into our larger fermenting jars.

Cabbage bound for greatness

Sauerkraut Recipe:

Ingredients:

5 lbs cabbage and/or other add-ins (see below for add-in suggestions)

3TB sea salt or pickling salt

Process for Sauerkraut:

1. 1. Slice cabbage and other produce to the thickness you prefer (thin is traditional)
2. 2. Sprinkle salt in layers as you go.
3. 3. Pack into a crock and press down to extract juices
4. 

   Thinly sliced kraut is traditional

   4. Weight the crock

5. 5. Press every few hours to extract juices
6. 6. Add additional salt water (1TB salt to 1 cup water) after 24 hours if the juice doesn’t fully cover the produce
7. 7. Cover with cheese cloth to keep out flies and dust then store out of the way at room temperature.
8. 8. Wait – taste after about a week.  You might prefer it after 4 weeks or more!  Cooler temps ferment more slowly than warmer temps and over time water may evaporate to the point where you want to add more salt water to keep the cabbage submerged.
9. 9. Eat or refrigerate once its reached your preferred level of sourness.  Fermentation will show down, though the flavor will continue to mature even while refrigerated.  You can store this way for months on end.

Some tasty additions to kraut:

Add apple and ginger to kraut for a fresh zing

• Mixed red with green cabbage
• Apple
• Ginger
• Beets
• Onions or leeks
• Wine
• Caraway seeds
• Seaweed (cut up small and soaked in warm water at least 30 min)
• Turnips
• Anything you want!

This 7″ tall functional handmade jar to hold all your kitchen waste is earth-friendly and decor friendly as the same time!  The jar holds close to one gallon and includes a lid that fits right on top. It also has a handle made from sturdy braided wire for carrying it out when it’s full. Words on the front make its worthy purpose unmistakable with the label ‘compost’, created using vintage letterpress stamps.

Order by Dec 14th for delivery before Christmas!

Handmade by our favorite potter Jeremy Ogusky.  Read more about Jeremy and check out his other products here.

Love the style and want more?  Order a matching fermenting crock made by Jeremy Ogusky here.

No home, whether in the country, the city, or somewhere in between, should be without this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia. For more than 30 years, people have relied on Carla Emery’s practical, step-by-step advice on basic self-sufficiency skills such as how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more. This updated 10th edition includes expanded and updated mail-order information, including e-mail addresses and Web sites, while adding more of Emery’s personal advice, reflections, and anecdotes to ensure that this incredibly detailed, diverse book is as enjoyable as it is useful.