Portland Fermentation Festival 2018 Redux

We've had so many excellent Portland Fermentation Festivals in our nine-year run but this year's, just last week at Ecotrust, was one of my all-time favorites. There was a lot that made this year stand out, including the fact that we had our extra-special guests of honor from Kombucha Ship and Kitchen Nippon travel all the way from Tokyo to Portland this year for our festival!

This year's festival Panel of Experts theme was Japanese ferments and included Kaoru Shibata and Machiko Tateno of Kitchen Nippon, Yuji Shimada from Kombucha Ship and festival co-organizer Heidi Nestler of Portland's Wanpaku Natto. Thank you so much to Travel Portland's Jeff Hammerly and Yoko Furukawa for translating the panel! I really enjoyed moderating it.

My friend Phoenix Rath made us super cute Japan flag lapel pins, photographed below, in celebration of our Japanese guests of honor, and she also made us Shrinky Dinks pickle pins. She and other friends have made us these cute ferment fest pins for the past few years’ festivals. I was lucky enough to get to bring some of them with me to Tokyo's Fermentation Future Forum in the spring that they made.

Another festival standout this year includes our first ever (and definitely annual now!) 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 then got to take home with them to ferment. So sweet. All of the veggies and salt were so very kindly donated by People's Food Co-op. Thank you People's!

And, we had our youngest exhibitor to date this year -- 11-year-old Kylie! Kylie and her mom are two of my very best friends. Kylie was our boss this year and we helped her make and sample her very own home-fermented root beer. She even worked on a collaboration grapefruit soda for Nat West of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider. Photos below.

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 have always had 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, 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 to everyone who came out for our ninth annual STINKFEST and made it so special and fun! There were nearly 500 of you! Stinkfest is our loving nickname for the festival since all of those open, ferment-filled crocks and ferment samples can get pretty stinky on festival night. In a good way!

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. I 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, volunteers and local media folks who always help us to get the word out.

If you didn't check out any of the festival coverage this year, I highly recommend this longer clip as well as this shorter clip from KGW with Cassidy Quinn featuring our 2018 Stinkfest. This Portland Tribune article is great too. We also had good coverage from Portland Monthly, Willamette Week, Portland Mercury and others. We are so grateful for all of this solid support year after year.

In terms of social media, we have our festival Facebook and Twitter accounts if you want to see more, and/or post something. On social media please consider adding the hashtag #portlandfermentationfestival 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 2018 press release: At a time in Portland when it feels like just about everything is undergoing or has recently undergone great change, it's nice to have some things that remain the same year after year. Thank you, Portland Fermentation Festival. No big changes, same old STINKFEST!  // 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 always have food and drink to purchase for a meal 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, 2018 festival photos! Stay stinky! XOXOXO

Festival special guests — the Kombucha Ship team all the way from Tokyo! Left to right: Kantaro Oizumi, Yuji Shimada and Hiroshi.

Our other very special festival guests from Tokyo — Kitchen Nippon! Left to right: Takako Matsumoto, Machiko Tateno, Kaoru Shibata and Miho Inada. Photo by Earnest Migaki.

We kicked off the festival this year with a Panel of Experts on Japanese ferments. In the above photos I introduced you to Kaoru, Machiko and Yuji but just to the right of me (I’m moderating and in the red dress ;) is festival co-organizer Heidi Nestler of Wanpaku Natto and at the far right are our very generous translators — Yoko Furukawa and Jeff Hammerly of Travel Portland. We had some audio difficulties and the beginning of the panel so we had to really project our voices without microphones as I’m doing here. I almost lost my voice! Photo by Claudia Lucero.

Festival co-organizer Claudia Lucero of Urban Cheesecraft dreamed up this super fun festival version of My Favorite Things and put it up on stall doors in the Ecotrust men’s and women’s bathrooms! So funny and sweet. Photo by Theresa Minor.

Every year before we open the festival doors I like to try to get as many exhibitor photos as possible. I didn’t manage to get as many as I usually do this year — running around — but I got this cute one of Choi’s Kimchi!

And this sweet one of Stinging Kombucha Hot Sauce! Hot stuff ;)

I asked festival co-organizer Claudia Lucero, on the left, for this cute photo of her and Kantaro Oizumi from Kombucha Ship at her SCOBY Adoption Center! Kantaro is taking one of Claudia’s SCOBYs home to Japan! I love that she put this SCOBY Adoption Center together this year. They went fast. Such a great idea. Next year we’ll bring even more of them. Excited for attendees to use them and share in the fermentation fervor!

Once we got our mics the panel was even better. We were heard all sorts of great fermentation in Japan stories and insights from Kaoru (speaking here) and Machiko (to her left) from Kitchen Nippon as well as Yuji of Kombucha Ship to Machiko’s left and Heidi to my left. My friend Earnest Migaki of Jorinji Miso filmed the panel and I’ll post the video of it at some point soon too. We’ll probably put it up on YouTube. Photo by Earnest Migaki.

And because Sake One couldn’t be at the festival this year (they were in Japan during it) they gifted us some of their delicious sake as well as complimentary sake tasting cards to their Forest Grove sake brewery. With their yummy sake, we had a festival toast to kick off the panel! Everyone in the room 21-and-over got a sample cup of sake to raise in a toast. We toasted with “kanpai” of course!

Kaoru Shibata (left) and Machiko Tateno (right) of Kitchen Nippon Tokyo during the panel. Photo by Earnest Migaki.

Once the panel concluded the first tasting commenced and this is the first photo that I took of the initial crowd. So fun!!

It filled up verrrrry fast with folks eager to try all of the different globetrotting food and drink ferments made by amateurs and professionals. So many tasty samples!! Photo by Earnest Migaki.

Including festival royalty Reverend Nat West of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider’s unfiltered Korean rice wine — makgeolli. Here’s my friend Josh Scofield, Pollo Bravo chef-owner, sampling it. Nat borrowed a couple of my crocks to make it. Every year Nat makes something new and experimental for the festival and we always look forward to what he brings. Over the years, he’s fermented everything from chicha, Mongolian rice wine and ciderkin to lamb-steeped cider (I kid you not) for the festival. We’re so grateful for his creative and fun-loving festival spirit!

A little closer. I really liked Nat’s makgeolli. It was my first time trying it.

This year Nat and our youngest exhibitor to date, and my dear friend, Kylie, paired up for a festival collaboration. Nat asked Kylie to ferment him a couple quarts of grapefruit soda to blend with some of his makgeolli. The soda was too acidic with all of the fresh juice and zest and didn’t carbonate but it was still really yummy. You win some you lose some — that’s the beauty of experimentation. What did carbonate was Kylie’s…

Home-fermented root beer! She sampled it at her Fizz Kid Soda table and framed her root beer recipe so attendees could snap a photo of it and make it at home themselves. She pointed folks to Southeast Portland’s brew supply shop (my favorite!!) F.H. Steinbart for supplies. So stinking cute. Kylie and her mom, Michelle, are two of my very best friends.

Kylie, Michelle and me in my kitchen after making Kylie’s Fizz Kid soda pre-festival ;)

Festival co-organizer Heidi Nestler’s crew, including her son Joi and his friends, putting together festival mini temakis (aka hand rolls) with her natto, rice and Choi’s Kimchi. So yummy!!!

Had to get a “family photo” of the cute Wanpaku Natto crew.

Aaaand a closeup of the crazy tasty Wanpaku Natto mini temaki ;)

Out on the mezzanine, we had all sorts of fermentation demo’s throughout the night. Heather Arndt Anderson’s fun and tasty whole cabbage kimchi and scrap vinegars demo was really informative and inspiring.

On the other side of the mezzanine was Charlene Murdock’s demo on sourdough levain and how to make a grape sourdough starter for it. Also fascinating and well attended.

In the tasting room, Soma Kombucha brought their rad kombucha kegerator and poured delicious blueberry ginger jun and peach + ghost pepper kombucha.

So fun having Wild Food Adventures at this year’s festival. John Kallas and Rebecca Humility sampled their locally foraged wild edibles kraut which included everything from wild blackberries and wood sorrel, to wild carrot flower heads, dandelion flower petals, common mallow and much, much more. So cool!

And next to them was one of our festival favorites — Sash Sunday’s OlyKraut with April sampling the goods. So delicious as always!!!

Throughout the night, just outside of the main tasting room, the Fermentation Station was hopping! All sorts of festival attendees got to try their hand at making their own veggie ferment and taking it home to ferment! Thank you festival co-organizer, Claudia Lucero, for dreaming this up and making it happen, thanks so much to the kick-ass volunteers who helped out at it and big, big thanks to People’s Food Co-op for donating all of the delicious veggies for it. So great!

Here’s cutest Claudia inside the tasting room at her booth.

And Claudia’s friend Gwynnie Vernon sampling all different Claudia/Urban Cheesecraft dairy and dairy-free deliciousness. Claudia’s dairy-free cheese book comes out this February!! You can pre-order it from your favorite (hopefully indie) bookstore.

Another super tasty Claudia sample — really yummy Greek yogurt with black sesame seeds, honey and smoked salt.

It was so nice to have Tabor Bread back again. I love their breads so much and I only wish that their bakery was closer to me because if it was I’d go there weekly. Their breads are outstanding and Daniel (photographed here) did a really good job explaining their grain program and how their loaves ferment.

Tabor Bread grains!

Even though our festival is strictly a no-sales event (we want folks to have non-transactional conversations — to learn, skill share, get recipes, be inspired), Careen Stoll comes with her beautiful handmade porcelain crocks and pottery year after year from www.lusciousporcelain.com. We love her and we highly recommend all of her beautiful work.

She tabled next too (and gave bunny ears too ;) another festival favorite — Oregon Brineworks’ Brian Shaw from Hood River. OB always puts out the tastiest rainbow-of-colors spread of ferments. We’re so glad that their business is thriving and that we can get their ferments all over town now.

Check out these super fun festival pins that my friend Phoenix Rath made us this year! Phoenix and other friends, including Loly LeBlanc and Kelli Brandt, have been making us festival pins for the past several years and we are so grateful for the cuteness. The pickles are Shrinky Dinks! It’s kind of a big DILL!!

My dear friends Earnest and Yuri Migaki of Jorinji Miso were absolutely slammed throughout the night. Of course they were. So yummy! They brought all sorts of treats to sample featuring their incredible miso including a…

Make your own miso soup bar with a few of their different misos!! So tasty and generous. Earnest and Yuri are friends with Kaoru and Machiko and that is in large part why they/Kitchen Nippon came all the way from Tokyo to our festival this year. Thank you Earnest and Yuri! You can find Jorinji Misos in markets all over town including New Seasons Markets and Uwajimaya.

The Kombucha Ship crew having an excelent time serving up their delicious yuzu and original kombucha that they brought with them on the plane all the way from Tokyo! Only one bottle broke! They stored their kombucha at Reverend Nat’s Hard Cidery, which they love, and Nat brought it to the festival for them.

Kitchen Nippon’s Kauru handing out their yummy, naturally sweet amazake samples to my friend Theresa and her daughter Judy.

Other delicious Kitchen Nippon samples — tsukemono, amazake “mayo” ++++

And big thanks to festival volunteer coordinator Joy Church! Our festival has always been volunteer-driven and we are so grateful to all the big-hearts who help out with it from ticketing to set-up and clean-up year after stinky year. Thank you Joy!

Look who came!!!! Festival friend Cassidy Quinn of KGW’s Tonight With Cassidy. Check out her awesome festival coverage this year in the links above at the top of the post. Cassidy LOVES all things pickles so she came to the festival after her live show. So sweet.

I wish I had a better photo of Vivian Lee and her yummmmy kimchi and teas. If you do please send it along because I can swap it out.

Yummmmm!

We love Thubten Comerford. He has exhibited at our past few festivals and his Buckman Brines ferments are so tasty! This year he brought fermented corn and chile and people couldn’t get enough of it. Including me!

YUM!

I never got to try Shun Ishida’s Eggurt yogurt drink that he brought to the festival but I’m looking forward to trying it soon! It went fast. I love that when you come to our festival you get to talk to so many of the makers themselves. A rare treat.

Longtime festival friends left-to-right Loly LeBlanc (and her baby pickle ;), my finest fellow Jimbo Sandberg and Jess Bull. Loly and Jess always work the ticketing table, although this year Loly helped out at our sweet Fizz Kid Kylie’s table. And Jimbo makes us our annual festival playlist that plays throughout the night on the beautiful Ecotrust rooftop. What cuties.

Speaking of the rooftop — look how beautiful it was! I didn’t get up there until the later side of the night but I’m so glad that I did. Gorgeous night. Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider, Obon and Ecotrust were on the roof and DJ Jimbo’s music made everyone feel so good.

It was hard to get a good photo up there because it was so dark but I did manage this one of Obon’s Humiko and Jason hard at blurrrrrry work ;).

And all of these lovelies taking a much deserved break and enjoying some yummy Obon food.

And this is the perfect closing shot from Kitchen Nippon’s Kaoru and Machiko. Big hugs and thank you, thank you to everyone who came out for our ninth annual Portland Fermentation Festival. See you next year! XOXOXOXOXO (Photo by Earnest Migaki)

Portland Fermentation Festival 2017 Redux

Thank you so very much to everyone -- there were hundreds of you! -- who came out last week for our EIGHTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust! We had 100-plus tasty funky fermented foods and drinks to sample, smarty-pants exhibitors and attendees, all sorts of fun DIY demo’s, rooftop good vibes thanks to my fine fellow DJ Jimbo (I'll post his 2017 playlist once he puts it up), Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider and Cinder BBQ.

Thank you all for coming out for it and joining the stink! And thank you to our newest recruit who joined us as a co-organizer this year -- festival friend and participant since day one Heidi Nestler of Wanpaku Natto. Heidi kicked-ass and you could feel her awesome months-long event organizing effort in many ways throughout the festival. Heidi really helped us focus on more diversity on the exhibitor floor. She got a lot of new folks to sample their yummy ferments this year and we are so grateful.

We put the Portland Fermentation Festival together every year with a shoestring budget + heaps of volunteered hours (thank you sooooo much to all of our kick-ass volunteers!) and as always we’re so grateful that Ecotrust puts up with us year after year. Thank you again Ecotrust! We love you.

We had some great coverage this year including this segment on KGW News with Christine Pitawanich and this Portland Monthly story by my friend and one of my all-time favorite editors Kelly Clarke. We're very excited that Japan's Elle Magazine was in attendance to cover the fest. I will shout that feature out from the rooftops once it prints. We’ve posted most of the other coverage on social media. If you’d like to keep up with local fermenty goings-on please check out our festival Facebook and Twitter pages.

Below are a whole bunch of photos from this year’s Stinkfest! If you have some great ones too please post them to the Facebook page or Twitter or Instagram them with the hashtag #portlandfermentationfestival.

Thank you, thank you, thank you and see you all again next year we hope! Stay stinky! Oh, and please let me know if I attributed anything incorrectly. Thanks!

Festival founders -- the Dapper Foodists! Marty snapped this one of us a few minutes before we opened the doors. Left to right -- David Barber, me and George Winborn. Year after stinky year. XO

People were lined up and chaming at the bit to get in. As always.

And  once the doors opened it filled up quickly with hungry folks ready for fun and all sorts of special food and drink ferments.

Maria Llull brought her delicious fermented whole grain mustard.

Maria's fermented mustard!

It makes me really happy that Gabe Rosen of Biwa /Noraneko comes to the festival every year. This year he made one of my favorite festival bites -- freshly fried potato chips tossed in dehydrated powdered house kimchi and served with a sour cream dip blended with dehydrated flaked and powdered house sour pickles. Chip and dip dream come true!

So fun having Thubten Comerford bring his sweet energy and super tasty fermented sour pickles, corn relish and sauerkraut to this year's festival. They were all so good and it was really nice to have so many new, vibrant folks sampling this year. We were aiming for more non-commercial fermentation enthusiasts and we got it with Thubten and others. Love this pic.

Thubten's tasty trio of ferments.

I am the lucky one who gets to organize the ticketing table volunteers annually and it makes me really happy to have my strong female friends volunteering as the fest welcoming committee in five shifts of two. Here are my friends Phoenix and Kelli at the lobby ticketing table's first shift before the doors opened. XOXO

One of the first two demo's of the night was the packed fermented nut cheese fondue with my friend Claudia Lucero pictured here. Claudia is working on a step-by-step vegan cheese book at the moment and I can't wait to get my hands on it when it publishes!

I got to try some of the vegan nut cheese fondue and it was sooooo good. Everything Claudia makes is delicious.

Festival co-organizer Heidi Nestler was doing a fermented natto demo (her biz is Wanpaku Natto) at the same time across the mezzanine. I really love that we have all of these tasty demo's every year. Inspiring and empowering

My youngest in the best friends realm -- almost 11-year-old Kylie (my Michelle's daughter). She loooooves the Portland Fermentation Festival. Her favorite tastes this year were Heidi's natto and a couple of the kombuchas.

Me and Kylie before the doors opened.

And if you were wondering what those cute pink things are that we are wearing they are festival SCOBY  (the host of bacteria and yeast that you use to make kombucha) pins that fest volunteers and dear friends Loly, Phoenix and Kelli dreamed up and made. So cute

This year's festival poster that the talented artist Tim Root designed for us -- as he does every year. Headless Horseman!!

Lovely Amelie Rosseau brought her pinot noir and homemade fermented hot sauce to the festival. Thank you Amelie! So happy that you came and sampled this year.

Susan Laarman of Swarm Portland brought her tasty fermented honey! She has a few accounts in Portland but please check out her website swarmportland.org for more info. about what she does.

Close-up of Susan's yummy fermented honey.

Photographer Shino Yanagawa (on the left) of Japan's Elle Gourmet Magazine came and shot photos of the fest this year! Can't wait to see them when the story publishes!

Photographer Joshua Eddings (check him out on Instagram at skyturtlestories) took this great shot on the rooftop this year. It always amazes me that we never get a rainy festival despite the fact its always in September/October. It's always beautiful. We had ciders from Reverend Nat Cider up there, barbecue by Cinder BBQ and...

Music by DJ Jimbo. Every year my sweetie Jimbo makes us a festival playlist that cycles good vibes on the roof. Once he posts the playlist online I'll share it on our festival social media.

Me and George taking a quick and sweet rooftop breather. We found out he can emcee from the roof and everyone can still hear him in the main hall of the festival a floor below. Hilarious. Photo by Loly.

Us earlier in the day hunting and gathering for the festival. AND getting a little sweet pick-me-up from Nuvrei which we both adore.

Festival favorite Sash Sunday of OlyKraut! We look forward to seeing Sash (she lives in Olympia) and tasting all of her awesome ferments year after year

Really yummy fermented breads spread from Tabor Bread at SE 50th and Hawthorne. We LOVE Tabor Bread... 

And John from Tabor serving them up.

Careen Stoll is another tried and true festival friend. Every year she brings her beautiful hand thrown porcelain crocks that you can purchase at various galleries and shops around town.

Careen and one of our favorite festival veteran volunteers -- Marty Dooley.

SOMA brought all sorts of tasty kombuchas this year. Love that they had kombucha taps to serve from.

This was a really, really yummy fest sample -- Cultured Manifestation's Yummus. Hummus made with fermented garlic, lime kefir whey, cumin, sumac and more.

Made by these two! Val Pena and Paul Castoral of Cultured Manifestations.

 We loved having Madi Kay of Imperfect Produce at the festival this year to talk with attendees all about the good work that the company does. Please check them out at imperfectproduce.com if you haven't already. Inspiring.

KGW's Christine Pitawanich came and did a live segment in the main tasting hall at 7pm and we had fun showing her different ferments and taking her around. You can check out the segment at the link in my post above.

We first took her to the Choi's Kimchi table with Matt and Chong Choi and Elmo. Choi's is my very favorite kimchi. Matt and his mom come to the fest every year. We love them.

We also took them by Fumiko and Jason's Obon PDX table. Fumiko was sampling their delicious tofu misozuke.

We tried to make it to the Jorinji Miso table with all of these fine folks including Earnest and Yuri Migaki but they were too popular and their table was too crowded. Earnest and Yuri are my dear friends and I love them and their miso so much! If you haven't tried it before get some! Photo by Loly Leblanc.

A close up of their misos. They made all sorts of tasty miso treats throughout the night including white miso granola, roasted miso chicken and miso dressing, tonjiri with red miso, pork and winter vegetables plus miso soup. YUM!

Heidi Nestler at her Wanpaku Natto table -- natto sampling (navy bean natto with mustard and natto kimchi) and educating.

Heidi's felted SCOBY looks A LOT like her new Wanpaku Natto logo. Cute!

Another festival friend year after year -- Colin Franger of Blue Bus Cultured Foods with all of his tasty treats.

Tina Johnson giving her super informative demo all about fermenting and curing olives.

Tina's cute sign.

Anja Spence and Bill Jones of Miss Zumstein's Bakery and Coffee Shop sampled their bright and delicious house fermented hot sauces. So yummy!!

John Westdahl of Squirrel & Crow Tempeh serving up his fried chickepea and sunflower seed tempeh along with his split green pea tempeh aka tempea ;

Festival ticketing volunteers Loly and Kelli (thank you also to Jess, Jemma, Phoenix, Michele K, Michelle G and Stacy!!) enjoying the festival fun

Brian Shaw of Oregon Brineworks serving up the wild and beautiful array of super tasty ferments that he and Connie always bring to the festival. I helped at his table a bit under the guise of "helping" -- really I just wanted to be closer to all of those yummy samples ;)

And a sweet goodbye from all of the fine folks at SakeOne in Forest Grove who came out and poured all sorts of lovely sakes. They sent me home with a bottle of their pear sake. Happy.

And, as always, the final festival shot goes to George Winborn -- co-founder/co-organizer extraordinaire.  The final fest pic is usually of him wearing the shoulder strapped vacuum pack but I guess Ecotrust finally got rid of that vacuum so now no vacuum pack.  Still so cute ;)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came out this year for our EIGHTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival. This year felt really special. I think we all needed to get together and have some good old fashioned stinky fun. I know I did. Thank you and see you next year. Happy fermenting!

Eighth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival -- TICKETS ON SALE!

The Portland Fermentation Festival aka Stinkfest is less than a month away! I'm pasting the press release that I just sent out here below. Please have a gander and save the date! Want to participate as an exhibitor or do a demo this year?! Info. on how to do so below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Eighth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Thursday, October 26th 6-9:30pm Ecotrust’s Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center Rooftop food and drink sales and music 721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR All ages, open to the public, $10 advance, $12 cash at door Children 12 and younger attend for free www.portlandfermentationfestival.comTickets on sale! We are now less than a month away from the EIGHTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival! Please join us on the evening of Thursday, October 26th at Ecotrust for Portland's annual, open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink lovingly referred to as Stinkfest. Bring kimchi, try kimchi. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland's fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing and tasting event of the year. Taste and share live, fermented food and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual event that brought out more than 400 attendees in 2016.

Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts, attend fermentation demo's and sample everything from sour pickles, miso and natto, to cheeses, hard cider and kombucha.

2017 highlights:

Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider will be making and sampling Hawaiian okolehao at this year's festival! For festivals past Nat has made chicha, kumiss, Angel of Death (LAMB-steeped cider!) and other gutsy ferments. We always really, really look forward to the wild (in more ways than one) ferments that Nat experiments with and brings to the festival. Love it.

Imperfect Produce recently launched in Portland and they'll be joining the Stinkfest festivities this year in order to talk up what they're doing, hand out some of their Imperfect Produce and give fest attendees recipes to ferment their produce with.

Some of the fermented treats already on the roster to be sampled in the main festival hall from amateur and professional fermenters include Korean makgeolli, fermented mustards and ketchups, adaptogenic herbal kimchi, Wanpaku Natto from Heidi Nestler, Soma Kombucha and Elixirs, Eva's Herbucha, Squirrel and Crow Tempeh, Claudia Lucero of Urban Cheesecraft's vegan fermented cheeses and much, much more.

On the beautiful Ecotrust rooftop (with its lovely open hearth to cozy up to and pretty strung lights) we'll have food and drink for sale. Reverend Nat's Hard Cider will be pouring delicious hard cider and Cinder BBQ (at Bushwhacker Cider every Thursday) will serve tasty sandwiches. DJ Jimbo will make his annual pickled playlist for the fest so you can sip on cider, eat a 'cue sandwich and listen to sweet and salty Jimbo tunes under the stars. We have surprisingly *never* had a rainy Portland Fermentation Festival. Strange but true.

Festival demo's will take place throughout the night. Please check our social media closer to the date for details.

Admission for the 6pm or 7:30pm Thursday festival tastings and fermentation demos is $10.

Online tickets are on sale! A limited number of tickets will be available at the door the night of the festival and will be $12/cash only.

If you or your business has a ferment that you'd like to sample and/or demo at this year's festival please visit our website for info. on how to apply to be a part.

Festival coverage:

KGW

Photos from last year's festival Food Lover's Guide to Portland

Cooking Up a Story

KBOO Food Show

Portland Monthly

Willamette Week

Portland Mercury

OPB

Facebook Portland Fermentation Festival Twitter @PDXFermentFest Website www.portlandfermentationfestival.com

Eighth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival 2017

Online tickets are on sale now for $10! A limited number of tickets will be available at the door the night of the festival and will be $12/cash only.

Well, the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler AND the pickles are getting longer. Wait, what?! The date for the EIGHTH Annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust (as always -- we love Ecotrust!) has been set and we're happy to let you know that it can serve to jump start your Halloween weekend yet again this year on Thursday, October 26th from 6-9:30pm.

Below are all the details from the press release that we have set so far for this year's stinky good time!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Organizers & Media Contacts:

Liz Crain lizcrain at gmail dot com

George Winborn gw dot winborn at gmail dot com

David Barber briney at picklopolis dot com

Heidi Nestler heidi dot nestler at gmail dot com

Eighth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Thursday, October 26th 6-9:30pm Ecotrust's Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center Rooftop food and drink sales and music curated by DJ Jimbo 721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR All ages, open to the public, $10 advance, $12 cash at door Children 12 and younger attend for freeTickets on sale!

Please join us on the evening of Thursday, October 26th at Ecotrust for Portland's annual, open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink. Bring kimchi, try kimchi. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland's fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing and tasting event of the year.

Come celebrate pickling season at the eight annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust. Taste and share live, fermented foods and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual festival that brought out more than 400 attendees in 2016. Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts, attend fermentation demo's and sample everything from sour pickles, miso and natto, to cheeses, hard cider and kombucha. We *just* learned that Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider is making okolehao for the festival this year! Nat always tries his hand at something awesome and experimental year after year for the festival. Check out the chicha he made for last year's festival!

Admission for the 6pm or 7:30pm Thursday tastings and fermentation demos is $10. Enjoy rooftop music by DJ Jimbo, food and drink from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider, Bingo Sandwiches and others TBD.

Festival coverage past and present:

KGW

Photos from last year's festival Food Lover's Guide to Portland

Cooking Up a Story

KBOO Food Show

Portland Monthly

Willamette Week

Portland Mercury

OPB

Twitter: @PDXFermentFest Facebook: Portland Fermentation Festivalwww.portlandfermentationfestival.com

Sandor Ellix Katz Powell’s Books Event for Wild Fermentation 2nd Edition

I’ve been very lucky over the years to get to be “in conversation” with all sorts of incredible food and drink people such as Mark Bittman, Dana Cowin and now Sandor Ellix Katz at my favorite bookstore on the planet — Powell’s Books. Sandor was in town mid-February for various events on his book tour for the second edition of Wild Fermentation and I was the lucky one who got to spend the night asking him questions in front of a full house in the Powell’s Books Pearl Room. Thank you life.

For those of you who couldn’t make the event I uploaded the audio of it here:

Also, Sandor did some radio and TV segments while in town and you can check out his KATU News AM Northwest spot here and his KBOO Healthwatch show feature here.

Below are bunch of photos from the standing room-only excellent Powell’s event. Thank you Powell’s Books, Sandor and everyone who came out and made the night special.

Full house of Sandor fans and fermentation enthusiasts!

Before the event Sandor served up some of his delicious fermented daikon that he makes every year from a Tennessee neighbor’s cover crop. So generous, so yummy!

Sandor talking about everything from his 55-gallon bourbon barrels that he’s used in the past to ferment vegetables to his recent travels in Asia and all of the ferments that he tried and learned about while there. Photo by Loly LeBlanc.

So cute! And look at all of those beautiful life-changing books. So colorful and inspiring inside and out. Photo by David Barber.

We got through my questions and then opened it up to the audience. When an audience member asked Sandor about the potential spirituality of fermentation he summed it up after thinking about it for a moment as — “unseen forces can be very powerful.” So beautiful and true. Photo by Denise Pasquinelli.

Long line of folks after waited to talk to Sandor and get their 2nd edition of Wild Fermentation signed.

At the very end Dane Fredericks of Powell’s had Sandor and I sign a bunch of books. Such a treat. Such an honor. I am officially the luckiest.

Thank you so very much Sandor & Powell’s! And thanks to everyone who came out for the event.

Purchase the 2nd edition of Wild Fermentation.

Portland Fermentation Festival 2016 Redux

Well, we did it again — another wild, stinky and super fun Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust! This year’s Seventh Annual fest was chock-full of tasty funky fermented foods, smarty-pants exhibitors and attendees, an excellent Panel of Fermentation Experts, all sorts of fun DIY demo’s, rooftop good vibes thanks to DJ Jimbo (check out his festival playlists here and here) and Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider and much much more. Thank you all for coming out for it and joining the stink!

We put the Portland Fermentation Festival together every year with a shoestring budget + heaps of volunteered hours (thank you sooooo much to all of our kick-ass volunteers!) and as always we’re so grateful that Ecotrust puts up with us year after year. Thank you again Ecotrust! We love you.

We had some great coverage this year including this segment on KGW News with Cassidy Quinn. We’ve posted most of the other coverage on social media. If you’d like to keep up with local fermenty goings-on please check out Facebook and Twitter pages.

Below are a whole bunch of photos from this year’s Stinkfest! If you have some great ones too please post them to the Facebook page or Twitter them with the hashtag #pdxfermentfest.

Thank you, thank you, thank you and see you all again next year we hope! Stay stinky! Oh, and please let me know if I attributed anything incorrectly. Thanks!

Pre-fest KGW News coverage thanks to Cassidy Quinn. She, Nat and Claudia tried Nat’s chicha on camera AND Nat chewed and spit up some of the corn mash that this traditional Peruvian corn drink is made of. You read that correctly — they essentially drank Nat’s spit! (I did too and it was actually pretty good — light, sweet and slightly roasty smoky) Nat always brings something wildly experimental to the fest every year and we love him so much for it.

We kicked off this year’s fest with a super inspiring and informative Panel of Fermentation Experts with left to right: Tara Whitsitt (Fermentation on Wheels), David Barber (Picklopolis), Matt Choi (Choi’s Kimchi), Nat West (Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider) and Claudia Lucero (Urban Cheesecraft).

A little bit closer. Such a great panel! We ended it on each of their best pieces of advice for the beginning fermenter. The general gist: just do it. You don’t need fancy equipment or lots of know-how, this is a born of mistakes primitive way of preserving food. Tap into that and have fun. Kick your intimidation to the curb.

Once the panel concluded the doors opened for the first of the night’s two tastings and madness ensued. A fun, yummy, wild ferments madness.

Portland Fermentation Festival co-organizers left to right: David Barber, me, George Winborn. We love you!

Nat West serving up his Peruvian chewed/spit fermented corn drink. Nat always makes really unusual experimental ferments just for the fest. Last year he sampled his Mongolian milk wine and the year before that he brought his fermented LEG OF LAMB cider! Wacky and awesome.

Connie and Brian Shaw of Hood River’s Oregon Brineworks always bring the most delicious spread of their ferments. This year was no different. You can find their ferments all over Portland (at New Seasons, Green Zebra, Peoples Food Coop ++) — they’re soooo yummy!

Owner Sash Sunday of Olympia’s OlyKraut serving up all different kraut samples (also available in Portland markets) AND pouring shots of spicy spectacular pickle brine. YUM!! Next level ingredient for rad Bloody Marys.

George Tsesoukas of Soma Kombucha (based in St. Johns) pouring up tart and tasty kombucha samples. So many different tasty flavors.

Out on the mezzanine we had three demo’s throughout the night. Austin Durant of the Fermenters Club (he came up all the way from San Diego!) did this fun and inspiring DIY kimchi and gochujang making demo.

Right across the mezzanine at the same time Claudia Lucero led a fermented nut cheese demo. I definitely am going to try my hand at these now. So yummy, tart, smooth and creamy. She’s currently working on a book all about dairy-free cheeses! Her excellent One-Hour Cheese cookbook came out in 2014.

Festival veteran Heidi Nestler, owner of Pickled Things, sampled her sticky tasty natto at this year’s fest and…

Heidi also led a demo on pickled Japanese vegetables — — nukazuke, misozuke and kojizuke. I really wish I could have gone to that one.

While Heidi did her demo festival volunteer superstar Marty handed out natto samples at her table. Jimbo got to try natto for the first time! He loved it.

I’m bummed I didn’t get any photos of the lovely ticketing ladies in the atrium this year but I did get this one with three of them. Left to right: Michelle, Stacy and Loly. All dear friends.

Lion Heart Kombucha! I asked one little boy at the fest this year what his favorite festival sample was and he said, “ALL the kombucha!” Love it.

Tim Root’s incredible festival poster this year! We’re so lucky that he continues to do our poster year after year. So creeeeeepy awesome.

Colin Franger of Blue Bus Cultured Foods in Bingen, Washington. Colin has been coming to the fest for years sampling his yummy ferments and you can find a lot of them in Portland at New Seasons, Whole Foods, various co-ops and other markets. That’s his green bean kimchi — got more than one sample ;)

Careen Stoll — another festival veteran — brought her gorgeous handmade crocks and mortars and pestles again this year. Check out her goods online http://www.fire-keeper.org/

While Claudia Lucero did her demo folks sampled her awesome fermented nut cheeses.

Jon Westdahl and Julie sampling all different Squirrel & Crow tasty tempehs, misos and one of my favorite festival tastes this year — cultured vegan butter. So good.

A little closer…

Festival co-organizer David Barber of Picklopolis sampling his always delicious sour dills. One of my favorite pickles on the planet.

My good friend and super talented animation artist Stephen Bodin put this cool image together for us to announce the festival a few months ago. Love it so much.

First time fest exhibitors Sue and Wendy of NW Ferments (they sell all sorts of fermentation starter cultures) sampling their tasty kombucha.

Rooftop good vibes (and tunes) were provided by DJ Jimbo and Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider. Crazily enough we were rain-free yet another year. The Fermentation Fest is always on a beautiful night. Really pretty view on the Ecotrust roof.

Grant from Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider poured cider on the rooftop all night long. Nat West of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider’s is my very, very, very favorite hard cider maker.

Matthew of Eva’s Herbucha (one of Portland’s first commercial kombucha makers) poured yummy kombucha from their tap to thirsty festival goers.

I always end these posts with a photo of festival co-organizer George Winborn (in the background) in the jetpack vacuum cleaner but this year David got the honor ;)

Thank you to every last one of you who came out and were a part of making this year’s SEVENTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival so special. Love, love, love you!

Seventh Annual Portland Fermentation Festival 2016

(Photoshop wizardry by my friend Stephen Bodin.)

Here we go again! The date for the SEVENTH Annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust (as always -- we love Ecotrust!) has been set and we're happy to let you know that it can serve to jump start your Halloween weekend this year on Thursday, October 27th from 6-9:30pm. We also encourage you to come out and sample a lot of briny and full of flavor food and drink to help brighten your mind and outlook so that you get out and vote on Election Day less than two weeks later. Do it!

Below are all the details from the press release that we have set so far for this year's stinky good time!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Organizers & Media Contacts:

Liz Crain lizcrain at gmail dot com

George Winborn gw.winborn at gmail dot com

David Barber briney at picklopolis dot com

Seventh Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Thursday, October 27th 6-9:30pm Ecotrust's Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center Rooftop food and drink sales and music curated by DJ Jimbo 721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR All ages, open to the public, $10-$20 Children 12 and younger attend for free

Please join us on the evening of Thursday, October 27th (Just days away from Election Day! Vote! Please encourage others to vote!) at Ecotrust for Portland's annual, open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink. Bring miso, try miso. Brink sour pickles, try sour pickles. Come out for Portland's premier fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing and tasting annual event.

Come celebrate pickling season at the Seventh Annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust. Taste and share live, fermented foods and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual festival that brought out 600-plus attendees in 2015. This year's special pre-tasting event will be a panel of fermentation experts including Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider (He's bringing chicha to sample at this year's festival! All of the corn will be chewed pre-ferment!) and other local food and drink fermentation experts soon to be announced.

Admission for the 7pm or 8pm Thursday tastings and fermentation demos is $10. For $20 attend the 6pm panel of experts on all things food/drink fermentation in addition to the 7pm tasting and fermentation demos. Enjoy rooftop music, food and drink from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider, Bingo Sandwiches and others TBD.

Festival coverage past and present:

KGW Photos from last year's festival at Food Lover's Guide to Portland Cooking Up a Story KBOO Food Show Portland Monthly Willamette Week Portland Mercury OPB

Twitter: @PDXFermentFest Facebook: Portland Fermentation Festival

Yard Fresh Pt. 32

Since the start of the year I've been full-time writing again. I did this for the better part of three years between 2006 and 2009 and at the end of that I said I'd never write full-time again. Well, times change, I've learned a few things, forgotten a bunch more and now I'm at it again.

The main difference between then and now work-wise is that I'm now working primarily on books -- two under contract including the Tasty n Sons Cookbook with Sasquatch Books (out fall 2017) and a secret Tin House project (out spring 2017) as well as a novel (out sometime I hope!). In 2006 through 2009 I was mostly working on freelance food writing projects and a book toward the end -- the first edition of Food Lover's Guide to Portland.

What remains the same is that writing full-time is fucking hard and it's easy to burn out if you work a more normal five day, eight-plus hours a day work week. I know that this may sound spoiled and/or crazy since working full-time for yourself writing books sounds so dreamy but I have really strong work ethic so in living the dream I pushed myself a little too hard going into this full-time writing thing again. In the evenings after work I ended up snapping at people and drinking a little too much too often and in general I was just moodier than I want to be. And exhausted -- mentally and physically.

Now that I've realized eight-plus hours of writing five days in a row every week isn't sustainable I'm figuring out how to manage my time a little better and give my brain and body breaks throughout the day. Things that have helped with the transition -- I got a standing desk, I've been taking some mornings off, I've been taking more long walks throughout the day. I'm basically just being nicer to myself and changing my perception of what a proper work week is. Work smarter not harder. So true.

Oh, and food. Cooking has always been a form of therapy for me and when I don't do it enough I feel off and not myself. I think it's similar to how folks who work out regularly feel when they don't work out enough. Here are some tasty treats that I've cooked and eaten in the past couple months. I hope you've been cooking some tasty things too. If so I'd love to hear about it in the comments if you care to share. Happy year of the fire monkey!

Tested these open-faced Monte Cristos for The Tasty Cookbook with anglaise soaked challah, gruyere and spiced maple syrup. Ridiculously good.

Since I've been at my writing studio so much more lately I've been making more soups and stews that I can heat up in my electric hot pot there. Kimchi Chijae is one of my all-time favorites. I use Lauryn Chun's recipe from the Kimchi Cookbook.

Made with my homemade Choi's Kimchi recipe classic kimchi. So tasty. I put a lot of brined shrimp in it this time.

Sandwiches of course are also great to take to work. I made this one with Edelweiss Sausage & Delicatessen's spicy paprika loaf and my homemade sour pickles.

I tested The Tasty Cookbook collards at home a couple weeks ago. They're so yummy and taste like they cooked for hours even though they only took 30 minute/ and I've borrowed my friend's pressure cooker for way too long. I need to return it and get one of my own.

I also made this crazy good Mark Bittman pressure cooker black bean soup recently. The best black been soup I've ever made in THIRTY minutes from dry bean to rich, inky, spicy soup. If you have a pressure cooker find this recipe.

Started the Toro Bravo cookbook limoncella at the end of January so it has another week before I strain it, add the simple syrup and then freeze it for two weeks before drinking. One of my favorite recipes from the book.

In the beginning of January my boyfriend Jimbo and I went to Manzanita for a long weekend and it was lovely as always -- especially this simplest of breakfasts. Pomegranate is always such a treat. And The Little Apple is my favorite grocery on the Oregon Coast.

One of my favorite quick eats at home is doctored up boxed mac and cheese. I made this one with kimchi, lots of fish sauce, gochugaru and sesame for my best housemat in the world Jennifer and I. I want some now.

I made a loaded with okra and shrimp gumbo last month and the best part of it was cooking it the next morning with rice and eggs and cheese. I will be doing this for the rest of my life. Highly recommend it.

My brother Andy, sister-in-law Laura and I toasting via Skype with the Vanilla Porter that Andy and I brewed when I was home in Cincinnati for Christmas this Christmas Eve. They sent me a package of a few bottles of it as they always do. Crazy good. And so cute.

Andy bottling the vanilla porter a few weeks ago. Laura sent me a photo...

More home recipe testing for The Tasty Cookbook -- Kyle's Granola with homemade sweet labneh and caramelized apples. I'm not all that into cereals but this one is awesome.

Making the labneh for it. Recipe testing till the break of dawn! Love it.

I've been making homemade fruit wines for years but 2015 was the first year I made Concord grape wine and it turns out it's pretty dang tasty. Not as good as the plum wine but yummy.

My Grandma Amy came up with a very special recipe based on a detective series that she read and loved called Wolfe Eggs (named after Rex Stout's character Nero Wolfe) that we had and continue to make for holiday breakfasts and now they're going to be in a very exciting secret book project that I can't tell you about but will one fine day very soon. RIP Grandma Amy.

Another tasty soup that I took to my writing studio -- Melissa Clark's Red Lentil Soup with Lemon in the New York Times. I love red lentils -- so yummy, pretty and quick to cook.

Pizza night with Jimbo's nephew Jonah, Jimbo's sister Betsy and her fiancee Sara last weekend. We made six pizzas for five humans.

Eat, drink and be hairy!

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Portland Fermentation Festival 2015 Redux

I was out a town for a week right after this year's Portland Fermentation Festival so I apologize for the delay in putting this post together. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came out a couple weeks ago and made the SIXTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust a huge stinky success!

This year we had all sorts of new tasty treats including our first international neighbor to the north exhibitor. Todd Graham of HandTaste Ferments came all the way from Vancouver B.C. to take part in the fest, we also welcomed our first New York Times covered guest -- panel of fermentation experts participant Tara Whitsitt of Fermentation on Wheels and we had our first festival playlist curated by my favorite fellow -- D.J. Jimbo!

We put the Portland Fermentation Festival together every year with a shoestring budget + heaps of volunteered hours (thank you sooooo much to all of our kick-ass volunteers!) and as always we're so grateful that Ecotrust puts up with us year after year. Thank you again Ecotrust! We love you.

We had some great coverage this year including this spot on KGW News Live at 7 segment with Cassidy Quinn. We've posted most of the other coverage on social media. If you'd like to keep up with local fermenty goings-on please check out our website, Facebook and Twitter.

Below are a whole bunch of photos from this year's Stinkfest! If you have some great ones too please post them to the Facebook page or Twitter them with the hashtag #pdxfermentfest.

Thank you, thank you, thank you and see you all again next year we hope! Stay stinky! Oh, and please let me know if I attributed anything incorrectly. Thanks!

We had to switch the initial Portland Fermentation Fest date when we found out that Neil Young was coming to town that very night. My good friend Steve Bodin made me this image for that press release. Let's just pretend Neil came to the festival and rocked out on an electric pickle.

Festival cuties working the door at Ecotrust. My good friends left to right Wendy Wilson, Loly Leblanc, Kelli Brandt and Jimbo Sandberg.

Before the fest I got some pics of exhibitors including festival royalty Nat West and Sarah West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider.

Aaaaand festival royalty Matt Choi of Choi's Kimchi.

We're so lucky that super talented Portland artist Tim Root makes the festival poster every year. Love, love, love this year's poster!

We kicked off the festival again this year with an hour-long panel of fermentation experts.

Festival co-organizer George Winborn was the moderator and on the panel left to right was Tara Whitsitt, Matt Choi, Nat West, David Barber and Tressa Yellig. AKA all of the fermentation smarty pants.

After the panel we stacked the chairs and in came the crowd of hungry folks for the first tasting. Eat or be eaten!!

Cuties Connie and Brian Shaw from Hood River's Oregon Brineworks brought an incredible spread just as they did last year.

Including their garlic dills, beet kvass, ginger gold kvass, fermented hot sauce, fermented ketchup and more. So good!

Cassidy Quinn of KGW News came and interviewed us at the beginning of the first tasting and she tried some of David's Picklopolis black pepper fennel kraut. She loved it of course.

Emily Squadra's spicy Mexican kimchi and Korean kimchi were both spicy full-flavored hits.

The loveliest Allison Jones of Portland Monthly checking in on the media list and my good friends Koko Wadeson, Jess Bull and Loly Leblanc rocking their door/ticketing shift.

Todd Graham of HandTaste Ferments in Vancouver B.C. handing out samples of the awesome chickpea tempeh that he demo'd on the mezzanine.

Jenny Hogan of NuCulture Foods with her crazy tasty and creamy cashew spreads. A lot of markets in town carry them. Try them -- so good!

Festival alum and sweetheart Claudia Lucero, proprietor of DIY Cheese Kits by Urban Cheesecraft and author of One-Hour Cheese doing her labneh cheese demo. Really popular demo.

Olive Evelyn Bailey of Lion Heart Kombucha serving up all kinds of delicious fruity kombuchas. I tried the raspberry and it was deeeeelicious!

Tabor Bread baker and baking teacher Sarah Black with gratis sourdough cultures and yummy YUMMY natural starter whole grain rye bread.

My friend Kelli Brandt in the foreground trying Colin Franger in the background's Blue Bus Cultured Foods super tasty Shakedown Beet and Kraut-chi.

And then the second tasting commenced! My friends womaning the door left to right -- Stacy Goodwin, Loly Leblanc, Michelle Gilmore and Michele Knaus.

The rooftop in full swing with tunes by D.J. Jimbo, cider from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider and sandwiches from Bingo Sandwiches. Beautiful night. Beautiful city.

Me and my fine fellow D.J. Jimbo.

Another rooftop festival cutie -- my good friend Jess Bull.

Crock maker Jon Westdahl on the right, Dario Barone of Sacred Summit and Julie of Squirrel and Crow.

Yummmmm!

Lovely Sasha Sunday and her crew with all kinds of OlyKraut tastiness including Smoke & Kale, Cumin Jalapeno and Sea Vegetable krauts.

Another festival royalty -- Queen Heidi Nestler of Heidi Nestler Cooking Classes doing her always well attended natto demo on the mezzanine.

The super sweet duo from Eva's Herbucha in the eye of the storm.

My good friend Loly Leblanc made a bunch of friends of the festival these awesome fuzzzzzzzy pickles to wear this year!

Beautiful Careen Stoll of Careen Stoll Ceramics with her beautiful handmade crocks.

Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider sadly packing up his milk wine. Every year Nat pushes the fermentation boundaries and brings something wacky that you can only try at the festival. Last year he brought LAMB cider. This year MILK wine. Weird and wonderful.

Closing time with my lovely ladies -- Loly Leblanc, Kelli Brandt, me and Michelle Gilmore. Most fun!

Every great Portland Fermentation Festival concludes with George donning his jet pack. All stinky things must come to an end.

Thank you to every last one of you who came out and were a part of this year's sixth annual Portland Fermentation Festival. We love you!

Tickets on Sale -- Sixth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival 2015

Since 2009 my friends David Barber, George Winborn and I have put on the annual Portland Fermentation Festival with/at Ecotrust ((THANK YOU ECOTRUST!!)) and every year it gets bigger and better. We’re only three weeks out from this year’s festival — Tuesday, Oct. 27th from 6-9:30pm — so I’m taking a moment to let you know all the stiiiiinky details in one place.

Most importantly, online tickets are on sale now ($10, $20) and you can purchase them here. Secondly, you can still apply to be an exhibitor — more info. here. Beyond that I’m pasting the press release below and some recent media links. Here’s the Facebook event page.

This year we’re having a panel of experts kick of the fest rather than one guest speaker. The inaugural Portland Fermentation Festival was in 2009 with Sandor Ellix Katz as guest speaker and we were lucky enough to get him back to speak at the 2013 fest. Sandor is one of our heroes and favorite people so we asked him to speak again at last year's fest and this was his response:

“sorry can’t make it this year. have fun and keep me posted on future festivals. i’m heading to the boston fermentation festival next month and austin (tx) festival in november. you were the pioneer fermentation festival and they keep spreading…..”

Let’s all be super proud to be a part of “THE PIONEER FERMENTATION FESTIVAL”! We can’t wait to see you all in three short weeks at the STIIIINK!

PRESS RELEASE

Sixth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Tuesday, October 27th 6-9:30pm Ecotrust’s Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center Rooftop food/drink sales from Bingo Sandwiches, Reverend Nat's Hard Cider & salty/spicy tunes by DJ Jimbo 721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR All ages, open to the public, $10-$20 Children 12 and younger attend for free www.portlandfermentationfestival.comPURCHASE TICKETS!

Today is a big day in Portland because October 1st is the first day that you can purchase recreational weed legally AND it's also the first day you can purchase tickets to the Sixth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival! Weed! Mead!

Kicking off this year's festival at Ecotrust is the panel of experts at 6pm moderated by co-organizer George Winborn. On this year's rad panel we have Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cider, festival co-organizer David Barber of Picklopolis and Bingo Sandwiches, Tressa Yellig of Salt, Fire & Time and Broth Bar, Matt Choi of Choi's Kimchi and Tara Whitsitt of Fermentation on Wheels covered by The New York Times +++. Tickets for the panel plus first tasting are $20 and tickets for either of the tastings solo are $10.

The Sixth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival is on the evening of Tuesday, October 27th at Ecotrust. As always it's an open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink. Bring kraut, try kraut. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland's fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing, and tasting event of the year. Taste and share live, fermented food and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual event that brought out more than 600 attendees in 2014.

Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts, attend fermentation demo's and sample everything from sour pickles, miso and kefir to cheese, hard cider, and mead.

Admission for the 7:00 or 8:00pm Tuesday tasting sessions and fermentation demos is $10. For $20 attend the 6:00pm panel of experts on all things food/drink fermentation in addition to the 7:00pm tasting and fermentation demos. Enjoy salty/spicy rooftop tunes curated by DJ Jimbo, food and drink from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider and Bingo Sandwiches and others TBD.

Visit http://portlandfermentationfestival.com/ for more information.

Purchase tickets!

MEDIA COVERAGE THIS WEEKThe Oregonian

MEDIA COVERAGE OF FESTIVALS PASTKGWCooking Up A StoryPhotos from last year's festival Food Lover's Guide to PortlandKBOO Food ShowOPBWillamette Week

CONNECT WITH THE PORTLAND FERMENTATION FESTIVALportlandfermentationfestival.comFacebookTwitter