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 …