fermented pickle *mise en place*

Hi Western Mass Readers

Many of you are already aware that I am teaching a fermentation workshop at Flying Object this July.  The first session of the two-session workshop will take place on July 16th, from 2 - 4 PM.  I would love to start a batch of sour cucumber pickles today.  Students could sit down in the beautiful space of Flying Object and enjoy some pickle.  Alas, there aren't any local cukes yet!  There will be, and soon, but not today.  Instead, I am preparing an imaginary batch, doing my mise en place for the fermentation workshop.    

Mise en place is a French culinary term that means "everything in place," i.e. getting all your ducks in a row before you start cooking, or, in this case, all your ingredients lined up before you put them in your crock and start fermenting.  And this is something we will do during the first session of the fermentation workshop.  We'll talk about mise en place, why it is an important culinary practice, but more importantly, what each ingredient does for a pickle crock.  We'll talk about adding various leaves (grape leaves, oak leaves, cherry leaves), about spices and herbs.  This will be the culinary side of the workshop, the half of me that approaches fermentation from a strict culinary background.  The other half, of course, will be about how amazing the process of fermentation is, how amazing bacteria are.  Did you know that for every cell in our bodies there are approximately 10 single-celled organisms, bacterium, living inside of us?  It's something to ponder and we'll ponder it.   

Sign-up is limited to 10.  Don't wait until the July 10th sign-up dealine to register.  Follow this link to the Flying Object website and REGISTER NOW.