Books & Media

 I recently had the chance to conduct an email interview with Sandor Katz, author of the book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. The book is an easy, appealing DIY guide to fermentation. This is part 2 of our 2 part interview. Read part 1 of my interview with Sandor Katz here.

Lee: What are some of your favorite foods you’ve discovered through your interest in fermentation?

I recently had the chance to conduct an email interview with Sandor Katz, author of the book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. The book is an excellent, fun, and straightforward look at fermentation, and an especially handy DIY tome for those so inclined. I'll admit to being a bit intimidated by the idea of fermenting my own foods (although I do love to eat sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, yogurts, and lots of other things in the book), but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It's written in Katz' easy going style (the guy goes by the nickname "Sandorkraut," which says a lot about him), and is an approachable, easy read. Here's the interview:

I was lucky to have the chance to conduct a phone interview with ana Sophia joanes recently. Ana is the director of the terrific food documentary “Fresh,” which has taken the Twin Cities by storm this summer and doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon (additional screenings are scheduled for the Birchwood Cafe on their big screen later this month). “It’s been an unexpected and amazing response,” ana says, “just completely grassroots and word of mouth.

What a great feeling to get some good press, especially from Rachel Hutton at the City Pages, whose Hot Dish blog I visit on a regular basis. Here's what she wrote:

The local food website Simple, Good, and Tasty relaunched this weekend to include a couple of very useful features: a local foods-related events calendar (Troutfest at Mill City Farmers Market this Saturday, etc.) and a directory of local food producers and retailers (farms, co-ops, restaurants).

The blog says loads of other nice things too, which you can read here. Thanks Rachel!

You might think, on the heels of the recent Minneapolis debut of the documentaries "Fresh" by ana Sofia joanes, and "Food Inc," (expertly reviewed by Kristen at Food Renegade this week), that we've had our fill of food at the cinema this summer. Even James Bond only releases one movie each year, right? Wrong! Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the most intelligent movie-going summer in recorded history.

Here's a terrific 22 minute Bill Moyers piece, aired near Thanksgiving 2008.

Okay, okay - it's organic food labeling that we need help with - not the food itself. The food itself? I'll let the excellent book Real Food by Nina Planck describe it:

Organic means food was produced without synthetic fertilizer, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, genetically engineered ingredients, and irradiation.

FRESH MOVIE SPOILER ALERT: Local food is better for you and for the environment. OK, now that's out of the way... I had a terrific time at the Minneapolis screening of the documentary FRESH at Bryant Lake Bowl last night.

Just one more pitch for the awesome-looking food movie FRESH, which has 3 showings in Minneapolis this week:

Excellent Heavy Table post by Becca Dilley today - with fantastic pictures - detailing the "deconstruction" of a local pig from Hidden Stream Farm, located in Elgin, MN. Chefs Scott Pampuch from Corner Table and Chris Olson from Paired do the work, which is documented in somewhat gory detail.