Posts by Adam Zolkover

Mak Kimchi

   Adam Zolkover
Mak Kimchi

Kimchi is extraordinary and complicated and vast, and it would be no less than hubris to imagine that I could do justice to so rich a tradition in one post, or in a whole blog’s worth of posts. When I started thinking about kimchi — quite a while ago, now — I assumed that it would be a little like making sauerkraut — possibly based on something that Sandor Katz had written in The Art of Fermentation (a book I highly recommend!):

“Kraut-chi is a word I made up, a hybrid of sauerkraut and kimchi, the German and Korean words for fermented vegetables that we have adopted into the English language. The English language does not have its own word for fermented vegetables. It would not be inaccurate to describe fermented vegetables as “pickled,” but pickling covers much ground beyond fermentation.”

Herby Lactofermented Daikons

   Adam Zolkover
Lactofermented Daikons, Peppers, and Cherry Tomatoes

In the run-up to my pickling workshop, next month, it seems only appropriate that I should do a series of posts about some particularly tasty examples of that nutritionally rich, biologically diverse, sometimes slightly stinky genre of fermented foods. For the past year or so, I’ve scattered lacto-pickles here and there across the blog, with posts about fermented greens, full sours, krauts, and the like. But there’s nothing in my intermittent exploration that has been anything resembling systematic. And if we few, elite culinary pedagogues know anything at all, it’s that without systematicity — without the sort of enforced rigor that drains the brine of joy and fun out of the enterprise entirely — it can hardly be called an education at all.

I kid.

Fall Workshop: Pickling Without Pasteur

   Adam Zolkover
Fall Workshop: Pickling Without Pasteur

People in Philadelphia! People who might have occasion to visit Philadelphia! You should all come out to this:

Saturday, September 28th, from 10 am to noon, I’ll be teaching a workshop on lacto-pickling and lacto-fermented vegetables, through the Mount Airy Learning Tree, at the Unitarian Society of Germantown on Lincoln Drive in Philadelphia. Participants will get a short presentation on the microbiology of fermentation. And then we’ll get our hands into the brine, and the shredded vegetables, and all the tasty spices, such that you’ll come away (dear readers!) not just with new knowledge and rich experience, but with one to two quarts of tasty living souvenir.

Massachusetts’ Experiment in Open Debates

   Adam Zolkover
The Open Debate Process

So — Massachusetts’ fifth congressional district is throwing a special election.

This in itself isn’t news. Earlier this year, Ed Markey, who had long represented Eastern Massachusetts in the House of Representatives, was elected to the Senate to fill the seat that John Kerry vacated when he was appointed Secretary of State. By law, Governor Deval Patrick has one hundred sixty days to line up a replacement. And so, on December 10, folks in Middlesex, Suffolk, and Worcester Counties will come out, cast votes, and send someone new to the least popular institution in the United States.

Hanging Out With Farmer Liz

   Adam Zolkover
Hanging Out With Farmer Liz

Elsewhere on the blog, I’ve mentioned that I really love having the opportunity to see people make things — and especially things in which they take a lot of pride. Whether it’s fermentation, distillation, canning, or coaxing delicate green shoots out of the stony soil, for the folklorist in me — for the part of me that’s interested in what it means to live artistically, to live deliberately, and to trade in the handmade — I can think of no higher treat.

This is why I was so excited that, after several months of crossed schedules and unavoidable delays, I was finally able, this week, to go and visit the Wagner Farmstead.

Ginjinha; or, Portuguese Sour Cherry Liqueur

   Adam Zolkover
Ginjinha; or, Portuguese Sour Cherry Liqueur

Tiny chocolate cups are for chumps.

All the best tourist guidebooks seem to agree that they’re entirely traditional and absolutely vital when it comes to imbibing ginjinha — that delicious Portuguese sour cherry liqueur — in Lisbon, or Porto, or anywhere else on its Iberian home terrain. But while I have nothing but respect for good old Rick Steves and his globetrotting colleagues who write these things, on this one small point, I must disagree.

(Mostly) Vegan Green Berry Smoothie

   Adam Zolkover
(Mostly) Vegan Green Berry Smoothie

A couple of summers ago, now, Sarah and I invited a vegetarian friend to come to dinner. I was really excited to cook for her, and planned an elaborate menu out ahead of time: soup, composed salads, pasta primavera from our garden, and crisp for dessert. It was going to be great.

And it was going great, too, until it came time to cook the pasta. By that point in the meal prep, the part of me that was committed to making a fancy dinner had taken over, leaving the part of me that was making a fancy dinner for a vegetarian far behind. The pasta water came to a boil. And without giving it much thought, I reached for the upscaliest noodles that I had on hand: squid-ink spaghetti from Claudio’s Specialty Foods in Philadelphia’s Italian market.

Restoring the Fourth on the Fourth of July

   Adam Zolkover
Restore the Fourth

Folks in the United States: I don’t know what you all did for the Fourth of July, but Sarah and I were in Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park — and then on the march — to support Restore the Fourth (#restorethe4th).

For folks who don’t know, Restore the Fourth is a grassroots, non-partisan, non-violent movement, the purpose of which is to demand that the government of the United States of America adhere to its constitutionally dictated limits and respect the Fourth Amendment. It was formed, in part on Reddit, in response to recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance initiatives: the monitoring of telephone conversations, and the PRISM electronic snooping program that was revealed by Edward Snowden. And it has the backing of civil libertarians and libertarian libertarians, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Senator Rand Paul (not really a libertarian libertarian, but plays one on TV).

Sour Cherry Upside Down Cake

   Adam Zolkover
Sour Cherry Upside Down Cake

For the sake of full disclosure, you need to know that this recipe for sour cherry upside down cake is recycled with only a little modification from last year’s model: a peach cake in the same style. In the previous edition, I claimed that the point of the recipe was to rehabilitate the upside down cake genre, which has been saddled with all manner of unfortunate business like canned pineapple rings, cheapy maraschino cherries, and an aesthetic that screams at the top of its little pastry lungs: I’ve just come from the 1950s, and I’m here to help!

In that post, I said that this cake calls for two key modifications that make it a delight, rather than a chore, to eat: 1) I use real fruit and only real fruit in this recipe, eschewing the canned stuff in favor of whatever is local and in season; and 2) I’ve turned this into a yogurt-based cake, which leads to a texture that is moist but not soggy, and that adds just the tiny bit of creamy tang you need to complement the acidity of the fruit.

Hardtack; or, Ship’s Biscuit

   Adam Zolkover
Hardtack; or, Ship's Biscuit

At this point, dear readers, you must surely already be aware of my deep and abiding love of Star Trek. But what you probably don’t know about me is that Star Trek is hardly the only shipborne drama that catches my imagination. I’m a sucker for all things nautical, too.

Wherever I travel, if my companions show even the slightest tinge of amenability, one of the first items on my touristy to-do list is to find the local maritime museum. In Reykjavik, it was a dockside exhibition showcasing the importance of fishing and whaling to the Icelandic economy. In Tallinn, it was a museum of nautical mines (the explody kind), followed by the Estonian Maritime Museum, nestled inside of a medieval stone turret named Fat Margaret. Blocks and lines, sextants, scrimshaw, or any other oceanic artifact instantly catches my interest. And especially if there’s a robust and well-sourced explanatory card attached, it’s difficult to drag me away.