Sunday, September 27, 2015

Homer celebrates the Art of Fermentation with Sandor Katz





     A couple of years back, my sous chef Morgan and I attended the MAD food symposium in Copenhagen. Run by Rene Redzepi and his merry band from the restaurant Noma, it has become the seed of many great collaborations and ideas for some of the best chefs in the world and a way for a small town bakery owner like me to both see what is possible and reaffirm their mission. (I wrote a little piece about it on my friend Michael Ruhlman's blog)

      One of the speakers I was most excited to see was Sandor Katz, (Esteemed author of Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation).  To my delight at the closing dinner I found myself sitting next to him. It was so interesting hearing about his life in Tennessee and fun to tell him how many fans he has up here in Homer.






      Luckily for us, he remembered our meeting when a chance to visit Alaska this summer came up, he got in touch.

      It was with pure excitement that we were able to host him for two events, one was a workshop that included both hands on and lecture with many questions answered thoughtfully by Mr. Katz, the other was a fundraiser for the Homer Farmers Market (a big thanks to that organizing queen Robbie Mixon for bringing it all together) that included readings by local authors as well as a sweet presentation by Sandor.

      The workshop was held at Twitter Creek Gardens, (made famous in this excellent Eater.com article by Julia O'Malley).

What a beautiful day!