My complete home fermentation guide, part one

Addicted to the thrill of fermenting projects filling up your kitchen? Today, I present you with everything you need to know about home fermentation. How-to guides, tips and tricks and fermenting recipes a-plenty.

52002742fb04d604c60057d2. w.540 s.fit My complete home fermentation guide, part one
Image via The Kitchn

1. To start you off. I’ve covered off the pros and cons on which fermenting starter is better, salt or whey?

2. Don’t have any whey lying around? Here’s my recipe for homemade (gut-friendly) cream cheese. It has

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Don’t Buy My Books

What do you think of this?

It’s a message I’m trying on for size after seeing outdoor brand Patagonia give it a crack as part of their anti-consumerist campaign. Patagonia ran with the slogan “Don’t Buy This Jacket” a few years back as a series of print ads.

Patagonia_dont-buy-this-jacket
The 2011 Ad.

The irony, of course, is that it translated as “Let’s Buy That Jacket” for many suitably inspired consumers and the company went on to experience double-digit growth. Patagonia is now running a repair campaign – Worn Wear – across the US. The company is promising to combat disposable consumerism by making products that last, and to repair, resell, or recycle them along the way. Consumers are then asked to be respectful consumers – buy only what they need and mend and recycle what they’ve got.

Face value, it’s valiant. Critics, of course, are saying it’s hypocritical because the concept is geared at growth. But I am heartened. Growth is not bad in itself. And it is possible to “consume” or purchase stuff that doesn’t waste resources. Plus, there is a possible future where manufacturers can get on board with us and give us what we want – fun, roundy-fonted branding and consumer experience that’s mindful and respectful and …less.

Actually, I’m quite exhilarated by it all. (What would take it that stupendous step further is if Patagonia staff

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The best hiking and eating trips in Europe

In tribute to the Northern Hemisphere summer happening right now: my slow food and hiking guides to Europe, all in one place. I’ve said before, if I get 100 people to leave their comfort zone and get out of the city to move and eat real food in regional areas…well, I will die in peace knowing my job is done.

Screen Shot 2013 09 09 at 3.36.42 PM e1378716231555 The best hiking and eating trips in Europe
Happy hiker in Sardinia, 2013.

1. My slow food and hiking guide to Sardinia #1. Sardinia is perfect for fans of the outdoors, especially anyone who likes a robust dose of uncertainty spiking their travel plans. It’s a wild, “rustic” island with a rugged history that very much determines both the feel of the place, the outlook of the people and various longevity factors such as diet and exercise.

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I’m taking requests…hit me up. 

While I’m out of here, would you mind telling me what you want from this site in my “new year” (when I get back). This is not an idle call out that’s secretly geared at “including the community” and “crowd sourcing”. I actually need some interesting insights to come home to.

agiftwrappedlife dot tumblr dot com I'm taking requests...hit me up. 
Image by Steve McCurry

1. What bits of the site are plain dumb and boring?

2. What bits do you want more of?

3. Do you like short or long reads here?

4. Do you like it when I interview other people?

5. Book reviews? Or recommendations?

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Your complete kombucha-making kit

You’ve probably heard of kombucha by now, the fizzy, fermented, gut-healing tea. If you haven’t had a go at making it yet, here’s my complete DIY guide to everyone’s favourite gut health tonic. It’s simple, cheap and you can get creative with flavour combinations. I bring some unique tricks to my kombucha approach, too, you’ll … Read more

My fructose-free kombucha recipe

In my first kombucha recipe, one of the concerns some of you had was the use of sugar to feed the yeast and bacteria. As I pointed out, very little sugar is left behind. But if you’re drinking a few nips of the stuff per day, it can add up to several teaspoons. So I gave things a crack using rice malt syrup, which contains no fructose.

Image via the kitchn
Image via The Kitchn

RMS is a blend of complex carbohydrates, maltose and glucose. It’s fructose free, slow releasing and doesn’t dump on the liver like pure glucose. This recipe below was previously included in my fructose-free chai kombucha post, but I felt it was lost amongst the star anise and cinnamon sticks, so I’m sharing it here as a stand alone.

I’d read that honey doesn’t work when making kombucha – the theory being the antibacterial agents kill the SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). So I was a little concerned about rice malt syrup – it’s a fermented product and I had a picture of the different bacteria squabbling for attention in the bowl, eventually annihilating each other. Plus, I’d used RMS to make my Fermented Ginger-Ade and found it needed to be a

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I’m out of here for a while…to shake things up.

It’s a polite thing to do, to let friends know when you’re taking off for a bit and ceasing communication. So, as a head’s up, I won’t be posting as regularly for a bit as I’m taking off for five weeks.

image via pintrest
Image via Pinterest

I don’t feel I need to say why and where. In fact, that’s kind of the point of it. Although, look at me, I can’t help myself…I’m veering into a sharing of the “why”. Indulge me briefly…

I’m taking off to be unattached for a month…as always, to see how that goes for me. I’m not taking my computer, I won’t be Instagramming, I won’t be (over) sharing. I’m going to just be on my own with nothing but nothingness for company. Well, nothing but my self. It’s possible I won’t be taking music. Or books. Or a pen.

I leave tomorrow. I’ll decide then.

This all terrifies me a little. But, again, this is the point. I hit stagnant spots in my life and feel obliged to shake things up. Doing wild adventures previously cut it. But even that’s

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The importance of a moral struggle against yourself

David Brooks is one of my preferred writers. I’m currently reading his new book, The Road To Character, which chronicles his attempt to cultivate a deeper character, mostly by looking into what he calls “eulogy virtues”, the stuff you want your loved ones to say about you when you cark it, as opposed to your CV virtues.

rsz_moralstruggle1
Image via pintrest

Brooks has fraud syndrome. He is so self-aware that his humanity repulses him. This tendency seems to go hand-in-hand with having an overactive mind, don’t you find? And so it is that he finds himself shallow. And in need of a deeper character.

“I have to work harder than most people to avoid a life of smug superficiality,” he writes.

I’ll report back on the book’s worth shortly. Meantime, I’m intrigued by this initial thought bomb that he throws:

“It doesn’t matter if you work on Wall Street or at a charity distributing medicine to the poor. The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself.”

I agree. The most pious person can merely go through the motions of “being good”. It can be “surface good” only. Conversely, a financier can go home and take very good hard looks at herself each night and radiate her “give-a-

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My favourite ways to have people leave me alone, via email

I like to collate these ideas and try them out from time to time. As I say often, where once professional success rested in an ability to accumulate information (research, data collate etc), now it’s firmly rooted in an ability to block it. 

rsz_laptop
Image via Pinterest

I say this, too: Where once life balance boundaries were delineated for us (via 9-5 workdays, respecting the Sabbath etc), they now have to be marked and maintained by the individual.

And this is something few of us comprehend. I truly think a lot of us are waiting for some hand of God to dip down and finally, concretely decide that It’s Bloody Time To Turn Off The Phone.

There are some bold types however who pop up with their own Deus ex machination. Here’s a few to perhaps inspire your own e-boundary maintenance:

1. Set an auto-reply that actually works. I start with the regular Out Of Office (OOO) that says Hi, I’m away, back on such-and-such etc. At the end, I suggest that if the matter remains important after my return, the sender re-sends their email then. Which effectively pushes the onus back on the sender to pin me down for an answer.

2. Delete your personal email account. Mat Honan, BuzzFeed’s San Francisco bureau chief, decided that the burden of personal e-mail was simply to heavy to bear. E-mails sent to his personal account now get a

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You’ve been eating your turmeric all wrong!

I’ve praised Turmeric before, the sweet salve to an inflamed, autoimmune, gut-compromised soul. It’s been used for yonks in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for digestive issues, inflammation, joint pain and blood purification.

Image via My New Roots
Image via My New Roots

But with turmeric, it’s all about the curcumin…the bioactive ingredient in this golden root. And with curcumin, there are totally ineffective ways of eating it…and effective ones!

Always eat turmeric with fat

Curcumin is soluble in oil and insoluble in water. Got it? So, when eating turmeric, it must be eaten with good quality, saturated fat.

Eat turmeric with black pepper

Piperine, a key chemical in black pepper, is said to help with absorption, too. So we add pepper. And cumin. But, we can do even better…

Eat your turmeric fermented

Yep, this takes things further…and doesn’t have to be tricky. A study in the International Journal of Food Science and Technology found the bioavailability of curcumin increased when it was fermented. During digestion, curcumin transforms into different metabolites. It is these metabolites that can be easily absorbed by the body, rather than the whole curcumin molecule.

But what if your digestion is crap? Well, by fermenting

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