Our 10th annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust was a dream come true and if you were a part in any way — thank you! Stinkfest has always been for the people by the people. There was a lot that made this year stand out, including the fact that we had our extra-special guest of honor David Zilber from Noma Copenhagen travel all the way to Portland to kick-off and speak at the festival! Thank you David! We are so grateful. I recorded the talk and although it isn’t great audio quality (I just recorded it with my little journalist dig. recorder) and starts a minute or so in, it’s still really nice to hear for those who were in the audience and also those who couldn’t attend. Just click on the audio player below. I also highly recommend checking out this fun short video that Mike Truong of Faint Media made of this year’s Stinkfest! And, if you’re feeling nostalgic, at the end of the post I’ve included links to recaps of every stinking one of our Stinkfests. Pretty fun to scroll through photos of those way-back-when ones.
We are super duper grateful for John and Renee Gorham for bringing David Zilber to Portland for their La Ruta PDX chefs-in-residence series. We are a by-the-bootstraps, not for profit festival so we only had an honorarium for David. John and Renee flew David out and put him up so that he could be a part of a very special Plaza del Toro dinner the night before the festival. Chefs, cooks and other folks from all of John and Renee’s restaurants worked for months on an incredibly inspired dinner that featured Noma ferments from the cookbook with their creative input and Pacific Northwest and international twists. It was incredible and we are so grateful.
I love that we had yet another sun-shined-upon festival day and night. Strangely enough, even though our Portland festival is always set in the rainy fall, we always have beautiful weather for it. That makes the rooftop of Ecotrust all the more magical on festival night. On the rooftop during this year’s festival, just as last year, we had music from DJ Jimbo (check out his festival playlist here), cider from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider and food from Obon. What a dream.
Thank you so very much to all of the inspiring and generous folks who traveled all the way from Japan this year to be a part of our festival including the good folks from Kombucha Ship, Kitchen Nippon (check out Machiko’s new book!) and Koji Akademia!
Another festival standout this year was the return of the Fermentation Station, organized by festival co-organizer Claudia Lucero of Urban Cheesecraft. At the Fermenation Station, festival attendees got try their hand at making their very own veggie ferment that they could take home to ferment. So sweet. All of the veggies and salt were so very kindly donated again by People's Food Co-op. Thank you People's!
Thank you to everyone who came out for our tenth annual STINKFEST and made it so special and fun! We still haven’t fully reconciled but I’m guessing that there were nearly 700 of you! We are incredibly grateful to everyone who makes our festival so fantastic year after year, including our host with the very most, Ecotrust. We couldn't do it without them. We love, love, love Ecotrust and their non-profit mission. Others who make our festival thrive year after year include our exhibitors, demo'rs, attendees, rooftop vendors, kick-ass volunteers and local media folks who always help us get the word out. Thank you to Broadway Books for coming to the fest this year and selling David’s books — The Noma Guide to Fermentation and You and I Eat the Same.
My friends Phoenix Rath and Loly Leblanc made us super cute Shrinky Dink pickle pins this year, photographed below, in celebration of our 10th fest. Loly and Phoenix have made us cute fest pins for the past several years’ festivals. You can see the one that they made that I sent to Athens, Georgia, to our incredible festival poster artist Tim Root below ;)
If you didn't check out any of the festival coverage this year, I highly recommend this Stinkfest Queens radio spot on KBOO with Ken Jones. We brought Ken different ferments that we all enjoyed after the segment — including co-organizer Heidi Nestler’s Wanpaku Natto, all sorts of yummy cheeses +++ from Claudia Lucero’s Urban Cheesecraft and my homemade shoyu, miso, plum wine and Noma’s fermented chanterelles. Oh and all three of these Portland Monthly articles are great too — pre-fest, highlights, Noma recipe. Also, thank you Meg Cotner of Bridgetown Bites for this excellent photo-full post from the festival!
In terms of social media, we have our festival Facebook and Twitter if you want to see more, and/or repost something. On social media please consider adding the hashtag #pdxfermentfest to your festival photos. We’d love to see them.
And, once more, here’s a reminder of why we do what we do from our 2019 press release: The Portland Fermentation Festival is, and always has been, a non-commercial event. Once you purchase your ticket and enter the festival you will not be sold to. The wide array of food and drink ferments are not for sale, they are there to sample. We will have hard cider and food to purchase as respite on the rooftop but the mission of festival has always been firmly rooted in no sales. Our one-night, annual event fosters learning, connecting, communicating and celebrating fermentation with one another. We believe that transactional interactions often get in the way of that.
Ok, without further ado, some 2019 festival photos! Stay stinky! XOXOXO
P.S. I’m not giving photo credits here because there are too many that I’m unsure of. Please just know that I took a lot of them and there are additional photos by Claudia Lucero, Heidi Nestler, Earnest Migaki, Kantaro Oizumi, Machiko Tateno, Justin Potts and I think that’s it.
Tim Root’s amazing festival poster for our 2019 10th annual festival! This is one of my all-time favorite posters he’s made for us. Hot dog dog! Hard cider stool! Music to Pickle By! Ferment Lament!
All three of us Stinkfest Queens thanking everyone for coming out for the 10th annual festival right before our fest toast and David’s talk. Thank you to Meg Cotner of Bridgetown Bites for the photo!
David’s talk was so generous and full of inspiring and detailed stories about Noma, fermentation around the world, new flavor frontiers and why the ancient art of fermentation is crucial to our survival.
Happily captive audience ;) taken right before the talk.
Another audience shot.
Stinkfest Queens Claudia, Heidi and I with David Z the night before at the Plaza del Toro fermentation dinner. So special.
Trent Finlay of Toro Bravo Inc. took this one after the Plaza dinner and Q&A. So many amazing ferments!! Thank you John and Renee Gorham for bringing David Zilber to Portland!
One more of David during his talk. So good.
And then the first tasting began! Soooo many people, so many ferments, so many flavors, so much fun!
Sash Sunday and her super tasty array of krauts, sauces and brines. We love Sasha.
Koji Akademia brought all sorts of koji all the way from Japan to sample!
Koji Akademia’s super fun and informative Justin Potts and Nakaji Tomoyuki.
Broadway Books broads Kim and Megan so kindly sold David’s books to festival goers. So grateful.
My friends Earnest and Yuri Migaki of Jorinji Miso managed to get one and get it signed by David while they were setting up for the festival. Earnest and Yuri are an integral part of Stinkfest. We love them and Jorinji Miso!
Throughout the night we had demos on the mezzanine. Here’s Dave Selden off 33 Books Co. giving his hard cider demo. So much good info. and really yummmmmmy cider!
The Fermentation Station also was hopping all night on the Ecotrust mezzanine. Here’s awesome volunteer chef Jami Flatt of The Nines and sake sommelier and shochu advisor Miyuki Yoshida putting together a DIY jar of kraut.
So many people got to try their hand at making kraut this year thanks to People’s Food Co-op, our wonderful, seemingly tireless volunteers and Stinkfest Queen Claudia Lucero who organized it.
Festival friends and superstar volunteers Kyoko Shinohara and her daughter Shiori also making kraut :)
Stinkfest Queen aka co-organizer Claudia Lucero at her Urban Cheesecraft table. So many tasty treats! Her cow’s milk cheese cultured with fig sap was a really cool fest treat. I think it was a first for most who tried it. Everything Claudia makes is delicious.
Camellia Grove sampled their delicious kombuchas — a couple of which we hadn’t tried. YUM!
Our good friends from Kombucha Ship returned from Tokyo for Stinkfest this year with suitcases full of kombucha! Really! They brought their original and yuzu. I am hooked on the yuzu. I hope we can get their kombucha stocked in Portland soon.
Kaz slinging Kombucha Ship to thirsty fest folks!
And travelling to Stinkfest, but not quite as long of a journey, yet again — Brian Shaw of Oregon Brineworks in Hood River. A rainbow of a spread of ferments as always. So tasty.
The Ecotrust rooftop was beautiful all night with the strung lights, fireplace and food and drink from Obon and Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider and music by my fine fellow DJ Jimbo. It’s always a great spot to get away from the intensity and crowd down at the main 2nd floor tastings.
Another view of the beautiful Ecotrust rooftop later in the evening…
Our good friends from Obon — Fumiko and Jason — served up delicious Japanese comfort food on the roof all night.
Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider — my favorite!! — is also always perched on the roof with all sorts of yummy ciders. A lot of people drank them by the fire.
Aaaaand Reverend Nat himself and his wife Sarah were sampling in the main tasting hall all night as well. Nat is considered a festival king since he always tries his hand at an interesting new ferment for the festival. Something he’s never made before. This year he made amazake with koji sourced from Earnest and Yuri of Jorinji Miso. Slightly sweet and delicious. They added a pinch of grated ginger to the top when serving it.
Here’s Machiko Tateno (who traveled to Portland all the way from Tokyo for Stinkfest!) trying it. She loved it!
Machiko with Kaoru Shibata at their Kitchen Nippon table with all sorts of Japanese ferments. While Machiko was in town for the launch of her first cookbook in English, pictured here, she also did a Powell’s event with Stinkfest co-organizer Heidi Nestler. We’re so grateful that Machiko and Kaoru came back to our festival for the second year in a row!
Fun and inspiring demo’s continued throughout the night on the mezzanine. Here’s Sarah Mooney demo’ing her xinochondros — a sour Greek fermented goat milk and bulgur wheat paste.
We love Tabor Bread! Long fermented, artisanal, local, house-milled grains deliciousness.
A close-up of some of their beautiful breads. Whenever I’m near Mt. Tabor I like to stop by and grab a loaf or two.
Chef Aaron Adams of Farm Spirit and Fermenter with his hazlenut cheese and ruby kraut on knaekbrod with caraway leaves. As beautiful as it was delicious.
Other Spirit’ers — Maya and Sean.
The Eggurt crew was in attendence with their dairy-free, egg white yogurt drink that is really unusual and tasty. You can find it at New Seasons Markets, Uwajimaya, Food Front and other local markets.
Here are some of the super fun and colorful Shrinky Dink pickle pins that Loly and Phoenix made for festival friends at this year’s festival. I got a jar of pickled beets pin. Love, love, love that they make these every year. So sweet. I mean, so salty ;)
So glad that I got to try Tobias Hogan’s ginger beer! It is fizzy and spicy and full of fermenty zing. I’d been looking forward to trying it for awhile.
I made these fermented chanterelles based on The Noma Guide to Fermentation recipe for boletes/porcini. I didn’t sample them at the fest but I wanted to include them in this post (that’s their brine on the right) because they are so yummy! You can find the recipe in the Portland Monthly story linked above in the intro. I highly recommend making them. Now I’m steeping some of them in maple syrup and I’m going to dehydrate them into sweet and sour little woodsy treats, also in the book!
Stinkfest Queen Heidi Nestler at her Wanpaku Natto table! She served up natto beans on toast (prepared like baked beans!) and natto mixed with rice and kimchi. Heidi’s natto is the best I’ve ever had. Love it.
Soma Kombucha’s Jean-Pierre Parent always brings a wide array of fizzy flavorful kombuchas. Such a treat.
And this year Soma tabled with Ferm Fatale’s Julie Cielo sampling her Shrub-buchas in all sorts of classic cocktail flavors.
I took this as the second tasting was winding down and then I snapped most of the rest of the photos. A lot of the night I was running around checking on the ticketing table, checking on David Zilber, visiting the rooftop etc. so that I didn’t get a lot of portraits of fermenters until the end. At least I got to everyone. Such a special festival.
Karel Vitek of Stinging Hot Kombucha. I always have a bottle of this in my kitchen. Love it!! You can buy it at New Seasons Markets, People’s Food Co-op and other spots around town.
So many tasty shrubs! This was the first year that Sauvie Shrubs was at Stinkfest. They have a SHRUB CSA!
Same with David Platt of Bloom Kombucha! We got to have a couple crazy good cocktails made from his kombucha at the David Zilber Plaza del Toro dinner the night before Stinkfest. You can find his extra special kombuchas at a lot of great spots around town. Check his website.
Careen Stoll always bring her gorgeous functional porcelain ceramics — for restaurants and homes — to Stinkfest. We love Careen!
Cutest ones. Fizz Kid herself in the middle (Kylie was our youngest presenter last year with her fermented Fizz Kid soda) with her sister Layla and mom Michelle — Kylie and M are two of my best friends. Kylie LOVES Heidi’s Wanpaku Natto so much. It’s one of her favorite ferments. She really likes stirring it to prepare it too.
I wish I’d gotten a photo during Marne Bishop’s Joule Crafted demo of beet kvass but I didn’t arrive tuntil the end. I hear that people came away inspired. Beet kvass is such a gorgeous and flavorful ferment.
Ditto the NW Ferments dairy kefir demo with several different types of kefir cheese including a hot pepper one and a potato cheese one. Yum! Every festival I wish I could clone myself and be at several places all at once. Then I could have a meeting with all the clones the following day. With ferments!
Another festival favorite year after year — Jon Westdahl of Squirrel and Crow Tempeh. This year he brought chickpea quinoa tempeh that he cooked and then mixed with jalapeno honey. So tasty!
We’re so glad that Colin of Blue Bus Cultured Foods makes the trek to Portland from Bingen year after year. His lobster mushroom kimchi in the jar was one of my favorite ferments of the night. So yummy! He’s such an inspiring fermenter AND forager. Follow him on Instagram at @foragefarmferment.
Thank you Sake One for sampling your super tasty Oregon-made sakes at Stinkfest!! We’re so lucky to have a local sake brewer so close to the city.
Amelie Rousseau of Amelie’s Table poured samples of her lovely homemade wines all night. I always enjoy trying her wines. Check out ameliestable.com for a schedule of her various fermentation classes.
Gabe Rosen of Noraneko and Giraffe posing with a plant! Ha! And his always fiery, fizzy and delicious kimchiiiiiii. Gabe and I are going to talk soon about working on a very special project together. Will let you know.
Gabe and Yuri sharing some really yummy miso-marinated dish that Yuri cooked up at the Jorninji Miso table toward the end of the night. I really love the friendships that have come about from all the years of our wild and free Stinkfest. Festival moments like these — a couple fermenters sharing yummy homemade goodness and talking shop — make me really happy.
And, last but not least, the day after the festival I bedded this little fuzzy pickle (thank you Phoenix and Loly!) in his fuzzy pickle bed and sent him on his cross-country trip to Stinfest festival poster maestro artist Tim Root. Goodnight pickle. Goodnight to all the stinkers. Goodnight 10th annual Stinkfest. Until we meet again — next year! STAY STINKY!!!