What’cha Growin? Podcast Episode #8 Abbey Huggan

In this episode we go across the street — quite literally — to chat with my neighbour and friend Abbey Huggan. Abbey is a schoolteacher by day and a wild fermenter by night. She’s also an avid gardener and is currently tending three in different locations in the city, including her own tiny yard. She

Almost Free Foraged Hard Apple Cider

One of the first homemade brews I made last year when the bug for fermenting things caught me was a jug of hard apple cider. I played it safe that first time out of fear and trepidation, which in hindsight could have entirely ruined those good bottles of expensive, unpasteurized, organic cider had it not

Mother May I, Make a Kombucha SCOBY

Shortly after my fermentation obsession kicked in full-throttle, I became interested in Kombucha, a fermented beverage that enjoyed its moment in the spotlight as a health food fad through the 90s and again in the early 2000s. Having managed to skip over it entirely due to the rigorous sugar-free diet I was on back when

Heck Yeah! Pickle Obsessive

My fermenting obsession continues to play out at a fever pitch. The honey wine is kicking ass and I just purchased 4lbs of parsnips from the farmers’ market with a loose plan to make parsnip wine. The book, (“Country Wines” 1953) speaks very highly of this particular brew. Thanks to Paula, who sent me a

Crackling Open: On Fermenting Things

I want to tell you about my new-found obsession with fermenting. I have been unsuccessfully trying to tell it here for months now. Where to begin is daunting and the words are always lost before I can find them. I have played at fermenting things in the past, but it was always an after-thought. No