It’s time to join the growing movement and become a conscientious objector—if not outright draft resister—in the war on bacteria.

How? Simple. Ferment your own food.

As award-winning author Michael Pollan notes in his latest book Cooked—which includes a lengthy section on fermentation that prominently features Chelsea Green author Sandor Ellix Katz—fermented foods replenish the necessary bacteria our gut needs to keep us healthy; bacteria we’ve decimated with our modern cultural obsession with “cleanliness.” Along with eliminating this bacteria we need to survive and thrive, we’ve become disconnected with how to make our own, healthy, raw and cultured foods like bread, cheese, yogurt, or sauerkraut.

Eco-Food Sale: 35% off until June 5th

As judges from the James Beard Foundation Book Award and the International Association of Culinary Professionals demonstrated this year—where Chelsea Green books on fermentation were honored—fermented foods, and how to make them, should be celebrated, not feared.

Whether your favorite ferment is sauerkraut, or cheese, or bread—we have a book that will help you deepen your understanding of the process, make the most of your garden harvest, and replenish the helpful bacteria in your body.

Happy fermenting from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World Retail: $39.95 Discount: $25.97 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner The International Association of Culinary Professionals Finalist “For the first time in human history, it has become important to consciously replenish our microflora.” That’s Sandor Katz, who’s book The Art of Fermentation recently won a James Beard Foundation Book Award, being quoted in Michael Pollan’s latest book Cooked. Pollan touts Katz as the “Johnny Appleseed of Fermentation.”

Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its place in Western Civilization Retail: $17.95 Discount: $11.67 The International Association of Culinary Professionals Finalist “Cheese and Culture is the book both cheese professionals and cheese geeks have been waiting for. [This book] is the most comprehensive cheese book ever written.”—Gordon Edgar, cheese buyer, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, San Francisco, and author of Cheesemonger

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers Retail: $40.00 Discount: $26.00 The International Association of Culinary Professionals Finalist Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking by acclaimed cheesemaker Gianaclis Caldwell is the book every cheesemaker will want as their bible to take them from their first, simple cheeses to ultimately creating their own, unique masterpieces.

Everyday Ferments Retail: $39.95 Sale: $25.97 Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25 Retail: $19.95 Sale: $12.97 Eco-Food Classics Retail: $35.00 Sale: $22.75 Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25 Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25 More Eco-Food Titles: 35% Off Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25 Retail: $34.95 Sale: $22.72 Retail: $22.95 Sale: $14.92 Retail: $19.95 Sale: $12.97 Retail: $24.95 Sale: $16.22 Retail: $24.95 Sale: $16.22 Retail: $19.95 Sale: $11.67 Retail: $17.95 Sale: $11.67 Retail: $24.95 Sale: $22.72 Retail: $99.90 Sale: $64.94 Retail: $54.95 Sale: $35.72

Discount codes do not combine with other offers—our books already on sale for example. Free shipping for orders $100 or more is applied after the discount is applied.

Chelsea Green - an employee-owned, mission-driven book publisher — is looking for a creative, book-loving, savvy Web Editor to join our growing marketing and publicity team in the company’s Burlington, VT office.

If you’re interested, please send resume and cover letter to Communications Director Shay Totten: stotten@chelseagreen.com. No phone calls, please.

General Description

The Web Editor is responsible for ensuring that our consumer and media websites are up to date, and is responsible for drafting and then implementing the creative content for our social media channels, as well as our consumer email program.

Responsibilities

Manage our ecommerce site (ChelseaGreen.com), keeping book data up to date and highlighting major media hits.

Plan and compose postings for the ChelseaGreen.com front page.

• Report website problems promptly, assist Online Marketing Manager and developers to resolve quickly
• Manage special media site for sales (Media.ChelseaGreen.com), updating book data and marketing information as needed.
• Conduct research on new authors to provide publicity background information on Media.ChelseaGreen.com.

Manage postings and interaction on Chelsea Green’s social media platforms.

• Track and respond to social media statistics to ensure high quality, and high levels of interaction on all platforms.
• Provide monthly reports to key staff and managers.
• Manage Chelsea Green content on other platforms as needed, such as Scribd.

Draft Chelsea Green’s consumer and specialty email newsletters under direction of Communications Director and Online Marketing Manager.

• Draft the list of books to promote, collect links and image URLs, as needed.
• Re-code email html as needed to convert for ChelseaGreen.com web posting.
• Draft promotional test subject lines, and marketing copy, for each consumer and specialty email.
• Complete simple graphic design in support of social media marketing and publicity efforts, including press releases, staff business cards, and consumer ads.
• Assist Online Marketing Manager with maintaining a list of potential online outlets for targeted promotion campaigns along with management of the ShareSale program.

Research and draft content topics posted to the company’s blog, social media, and multimedia channels for maximum SEO, reach, branding, and effectiveness.

Monitor emerging, and existing, trends and best practices in SEO, social media and other online marketing strategies.

Work with the Online Marketing Manager to develop strategies to grow our online marketing outreach through our direct email program, website, social media, and more.

Position Details: Full-time salaried position, based in Burlington, Vermont. Spends one day a week in the White River Junction, Vermont office.

Reports to: Communications Director

Qualifications: This is a position for someone with a demonstrated interest in online publishing and marketing and an interest in our company mission. The qualified candidate will be able to work within a team environment as well as work independently, and be responsible for tracking and monitoring their goals and objectives. One to two years experience multimedia publishing helpful. Must have: strong communication, writing, and interpersonal skills; ability to work in fast-paced, deadline-driven environment; Bachelor’s degree; strong computer skills and proficiency in Word and Excel; comfort with using Google Analytics and other online tracking software; proficiency in social media, and comfortable with administrative tasks. HTML and other multimedia experience is helpful, as is being familiar with Adobe Creative Suite – PhotoShop Dreamweaver, InDesign and Acrobat.

About Us: For almost 30 years, Chelsea Green has been the go-to publisher for people seeking foundational books on the politics and practice of sustainable living, including organic gardening and agriculture, renewable energy, green building, eco-cuisine, and ethical business. In 2012, we decided to practice what we publish and became employee-owned. We are a founding member of the Green Press Initiative and have been printing books on recycled paper since 1985, when our first list of books went on sale. We print our books on paper that consists of a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste and aim for 100 percent whenever possible. We also don’t print our books overseas, but rather use domestic printers to keep our shipping costs (and impact on the environment) at a minimum.

Are you looking for some easy energy efficiency projects you can do around the house to reduce your carbon footprint? Are you planning to build a new house and want to work with local materials? Maybe you want to try your hand at building and baking in an earth oven. Humans were made to build, and the Earth has all the materials we need if we know where to look and how to use them.

We’ve put a selection of our keystone books on sale to inspire and guide you to think about natural methods for your next building project.

Chelsea Green has published classic how-to texts on natural building techniques since the mid 1980s, with some of them among our all-time bestsellers, like The Straw Bale House. We have continued this proud tradition with the recent publication of The Natural Building Companion and Passive Solar Architecture.

From curvaceous houses sculpted by hand out of cob, to the soft colors of natural plaster over straw bales, and the efficient radiant warmth put out by masonry stoves, natural building techniques have been making people comfortable for centuries. These ancient methods of construction have never really gone out of style, and today they’re more important than ever.

Happy reading (and building) from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing.

The Natural Building Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to Integrative Design and Construction

Retail Price: $59.95 Sale Price: $38.97

In this complete reference to natural building philosophy, design, and technique, Jacob Deva Racusin and Ace McArleton walk builders through planning and construction, offering step-by-step instructions on siting, choosing materials, planning for heat and moisture, developing an integrative design, plastering, budgeting, and much more.

The book is part of the The Yestermorrow Design/Build Library, and includes an instructional DVD with dozens of step-by-step projects designed to help better guide you in the construction of your natural home.

What distinguishes “natural building” from the more mainstream designation “green building”? Author Jacob Deva Racusin discusses the differences, and how to bridge the gap in this video lecture. WATCH IT HERE…

Passive Solar Architecture: Heating, Cooling, Ventilation, Daylighting, and More Using Natural Flows

Retail Price: $85.00 Sale Price: $55.25

In this comprehensive overview of passive solar design, two of America’s solar pioneers give homeowners, architects, designers, and builders the keys to successfully harnessing the sun and maximizing climate resources for heating, cooling, ventilation, and daylighting.

Bainbridge and Haggard draw upon examples from more than three decades of experience to offer overarching principles as well as the details and formulas needed to successfully design a more comfortable, healthy, beautiful, and secure place in which to live. Even if the power goes off.

Bookbuilders of Boston gave Passive Solar Architecture an award for its professional and informative design. READ MORE HERE…

Adobe Homes for All Climates: Simple, Affordable, and Earthquake-Resistant Natural Building Techniques

Retail Price: $34.95 Sale Price: $22.72

Adobe bricks are an easy way to achieve a solid masonry-wall system. Contrary to stereotypes, adobe is adaptable for use in cold, wet climates as well as hot, dry ones. Energy and resource efficient, and requiring minimal effort for long-term maintenance, the humble adobe brick is an ideal option for eco-friendly building throughout the world.

Equipped with this book, you will be able to obtain a building permit, make and build with adobe bricks to create a beautiful, energy-efficient home that will last for generations to come.

Su Casa magazine reviewed Adobe Homes for All Climates. READ IT HERE…

Masonry Heaters: Designing, Building, and Living with a Piece of the Sun

Retail Price: $39.95  Sale Price: $25.97

Masonry Heaters is a complete guide to designing and living with one of the oldest, and yet one of the newest, heating devices. The value of a masonry heater lies in its durability, quality, serviceability, dependability, and health-supporting features. And it is an investment in self-sufficiency and freedom from fossil fuels.

Those who are looking to build, add onto, or remodel a house will find comprehensive and practical advice for designing and installing a masonry heater, including detailed discussion of materials, code considerations, and many photos and illustrations.

Check out the Google Preview for gorgeous photos from the book. READ IT HERE…

Roundwood Timber Framing: Building Naturally Using Local Resources

Retail Price: $39.95  Sale Price: $25.97

This definitive manual marks the birth of a new vernacular for the 21st century.

Over 400 colour photographs and step-by-step instructions guide you through the building of anything from a garden shed to your own woodland house. This practical ‘how to’ book will unquestionably be a benchmark for sustainable building using renewable local resources and evolving traditional skills to create durable, ecological and beautiful buildings.

What does a roundwood building look like? Take a tour of Ben Law’s home in this brief video. WATCH IT HERE…

The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage

Retail Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $22.75

Cob is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as “an ecstatic house.”

 

The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical, but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake a cob building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.

You can browse and preview the full book here. READ IT HERE…

The Straw Bale House

Retail Price: $30.00  Sale Price: $19.50

Imagine building a house with superior seismic stability, fire resistance, and thermal insulation, using an annually renewable resource, for half the cost of a comparable conventional home.

 

Welcome to the straw bale house! Whether you build an entire house or something more modest—a home office or studio, a retreat cabin or guest cottage—plastered straw bale construction is an exceptionally durable and inexpensive option.

This book is our all-time #1 bestseller!  

Athena Steen tells her story in this excerpt from the book. READ IT HERE…

The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit

Retail Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $22.75

You probably know that energy used in your home produces more global-warming pollution than your car, but what can you do to reduce your reliance on fossil fuels?

 

Read this book—then grab your handsaw, tape measure, and drill, and get started! A life powered by the sun is waiting for you. Meant as a guide for renovating existing homes, The Carbon-Free Home gives you the hands-on knowledge necessary to turn your existing house into an environmental asset.

Save money this summer: ditch your clothes dryer! Just one of many great projects from the book. GET STARTED…

Build Your Own Earth Oven: A Low-Cost Wood-Fired Mud Oven; Simple Sourdough Bread; Perfect Loaves

Retail Price: $17.95 Sale Price: $11.67

Earth ovens combine the utility of a wood-fired, retained-heat oven with the ease and timeless beauty of earthen construction.

 

Build Your Own Earth Oven is fully illustrated with step-by-step directions, including how to find materials, build an oven, tend the fire, and how to make perfect sourdough hearth loaves in the artisan tradition.

Why an earth oven? What is this “cob” stuff anyway? Read the book’s introduction to find out. READ IT HERE…

The Passive Solar House, Revised and Expanded: The Complete Guide to Heating and Cooling Your Home

Includes instructional DVD Retail Price: $40.00 Sale Price: $26.00

For the past ten years The Passive Solar House has offered proven techniques for building homes that heat and cool themselves, using readily available materials and methods familiar to all building contractors and many do-it-yourself homeowners.

 

This is the building book for a world of climbing energy costs. Applicable to diverse regions, climates, budgets, and styles of architecture, Kachadorian’s techniques translate the essentials of timeless solar design into practical wisdom for today’s solar builders. Includes a CD-ROM with Custom Design Software.

 

Use your windows to heat your home. FIND OUT HOW…

 

More New and Noteworthy Titles On Sale

 

* Books on sale until August 15th*

Editor’s note: Finally, Sandor Katz — the nation’s fermentation expert — has written a bible-sized book about his craft. Beyond sauerkraut, bread, and beer, The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World takes readers into the outer realms of the theory and practice behind this edgy, traditional approach to food preservation. What follows is an excerpt from Katz’ introduction, but it can also serve as a kind of manifesto for his work. See Katz’ recipe for homemade ginger beer and “ginger bug” for more on the how-to side of things.

One word that repeatedly comes to the fore in my exploration and thinking about fermentation is culture. Fermentation relates to culture in many different ways, corresponding with the many layers of meaning embedded in this important word, from its literal and specific meanings in the context of microbiology to its broadest connotations. We call the starters that we add to milk to make yogurt, or to initiate any fermentation, cultures. Simultaneously, culture constitutes the totality of all that humans seek to pass from generation to generation, including language, music, art, literature, scientific knowledge, and belief systems, as well as agriculture and culinary techniques (in both of which fermentation occupies a central role).

In fact, the word culture comes from Latin cultura, a form of colere, “to cultivate.” Our cultivation of the land and its creatures — plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria — is essential to culture. Reclaiming our food and our participation in cultivation is a means of cultural revival, taking action to break out of the confining and infantilizing dependency of the role of consumer (user), and taking back our dignity and power by becoming producers and creators.

This is not just about fermentation (even if, as a biological force upon our food, that is inevitable), but about food more broadly. Every living creature on this Earth interacts intimately with its environment via its food. Humans in our developed technological society, however, have largely severed this connection, and with disastrous results. Though affluent people have more food choices than people of the past could ever have dreamed of, and though one person’s labor can produce more food today than ever before, the large-scale, commercial methods and systems that enable these phenomena are destroying our Earth, destroying our health, and depriving us of dignity. With respect to food, the vast majority of people are completely dependent for survival upon a fragile global infrastructure of monocultures, synthetic chemicals, biotechnology, and transportation.

Moving toward a more harmonious way of life and greater resilience requires our active participation. This means finding ways to become more aware of and connected to the other forms of life that are around us and that constitute our food — plants and animals, as well as bacteria and fungi — and to the resources, such as water, fuel, materials, tools, and transportation, upon which we depend. It means taking responsibility for our shit, both literally and figuratively. We can become creators of a better world, of better and more sustainable food choices, of greater awareness of resources, and of community based upon sharing. For culture to be strong and resilient, it must be a creative realm in which skills, information, and values are engaged and transmitted; culture cannot thrive as a consumer paradise or a spectator sport. Daily life offers constant opportunities for participatory action. Seize them.

Just as the microbial cultures exist only as communities, so too do our broader human cultures. Food is the greatest community builder there is. It invites people to sit and stay awhile, and families to gather together. It welcomes new neighbors and weary travelers and beloved old friends. And it takes a village to produce food. Many hands make light work, and food production often gives rise to specialization and exchange. And even more than food in general, fermented foods — especially beverages — play a significant role in community building. Not only are many feasts, rituals, and celebrations organized around products of fermentation (such as bread and wine), ferments are also among the oldest and most important of the foods that add both value and stability to the raw products of agriculture, essential to the economic underpinnings of all communities. The brewer and the baker are central participants in any grain-based economy; and wine transforms perishable grapes into a stable and coveted commodity, as does cheese for milk.

Reclaiming our food means reclaiming community, engaging its economic interconnectivity of specialization and divisions of labor, but at a human scale, promoting awareness of resources and local exchange. Transporting goods around the globe takes a huge amount of resources and wreaks environmental havoc. And while exotic foods can be thrilling treats, it’s inappropriate and destructive to organize our lives primarily around them; most globalized food commodities are grown in vast monocultures, at the expense of forests and diverse subsistence crops. And by being totally dependent on an infrastructure of global trade, we make ourselves exceedingly vulnerable to disruptions for any number of reasons, from natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tsunamis) and resource depletion (peak oil), to political violence (war, terrorism, organized crime).

Fermentation can be a centerpiece of economic revival. Relocalizing food means a renewal not only of agriculture but also of the processes used to transform and preserve the products of agriculture into the things that people eat and drink every day, including ferments such as bread, cheese, and beer. By participating in local food production — agriculture and beyond — we actually create important resources that can help fill our most basic daily needs. By supporting this local food revival, we recycle our dollars into our communities, where they may repeatedly circulate, supporting people in productive endeavors and creating incentives for people to acquire important skills, as well as feeding us fresher, healthier food with less fuel and pollution embedded in it. As our communities feed ourselves more and thereby reclaim power and dignity, we also decrease our collective dependency on the fragile infrastructure of global trade. Cultural revival means economic revival.

Everywhere I go I meet people who are making the choice to be part of this culture of revival. Perhaps this is exemplified best by the growing number of young people who are choosing to take up farming. The second half of the 20th century saw the near extinction of the tradition of regional food self-sufficiency in the United States and many other places. Today that tradition is in revival. Let us support and become part of it. Productive local food systems are better than globalized food for many reasons: They yield fresher and more nutritious food; local jobs and productivity; less dependence on fuel and infrastructure; and greater food security. We must become more closely connected to the land via our food, and we must have people willing to do the hard physical work of agriculture. Value and reward that work. And get involved with it.

I don’t want to give the impression that this culture of revival is brand-new. There always have been holdouts who resist new technologies, such as farmers who never adopted chemical methods, or never stopped using and saving the legacy of seed resources they inherited, or still use horses in lieu of tractors, or families who have unceasingly maintained fermentation practices. There have always been seekers looking to reconnect to old ways, or unwilling to accept the “conveniences” of modern culture. As much as culture is always reinventing itself in unprecedented ways, culture is continuity. There are always roots.

Cultural revival certainly does not require abandoning cities and suburbs for some remote rural ideal. We must create more harmonious ways of life where people and infrastructures are, and that is mostly cities and suburbs. “Sustainability” or “resilience” cannot be remote ideals you have to go somewhere else to fully realize. They are ethics we can and must build into our lives however we are able to and wherever we find ourselves.

Nearly 20 years ago, I moved from a lifetime in Manhattan to an off-the-grid rural commune in Tennessee, and I’m so glad I did. Sometimes a dramatic change is exactly what you need. I was 30 years old, had recently tested HIV-positive, and was searching for a big change I could not yet imagine, when a chance encounter led me to a communal homestead of queers in the woods. I can personally testify that rural resettlement can be a rewarding path. But rural living is certainly not intrinsically better or more sustainable than city life. In fact, rural dwelling, as most of us (myself included) are practicing it, involves driving frequently to get around. In the city I grew up in, most people do not have cars and get around using mass transit.

Cities are where most people are, and much incredibly creative and transformative work is being done in urban and suburban areas. Urban farming and homesteading are on the rise, flourishing especially in cities with large expanses of abandoned properties. The revival of artisan fermentation enterprises is centered around cities, mainly because they hold the major markets, no matter where production may occur.

The late, great urbanist Jane Jacobs put forth an intriguing theory that agriculture developed and spread from cities rather than rural outposts. In her book The Economy of Cities, Jacobs rejects the prevailing assumption that “cities are built upon a rural economic base,” which she calls the “dogma of agricultural primacy.” Instead she argues that the inherent creativity of urbanism fostered the innovations that spawned (and continually reinvent) agriculture. “The first spread of the new grains and animals is from city to city … The cultivation of plants and animals is, as yet, only city work.” Her basic idea is that a trading settlement that is a crossroads for people migrating from different areas provides a dynamic environment for incidental seed crossing and selective breeding, as well as greater opportunities for specialization and the development and spread of techniques.

If Jacobs’s theory is correct, then fermentation practices must also have urban roots. Rural dwellers may frequently be guardians of inherited legacies such as seeds, cultures, and know-how; however, it is primarily urbanites who are spurring agricultural change in the countryside by creating demand — starting farmers markets and providing the bulk of the community support for what is known as community supported agriculture (CSA). Urbanites can grow gardens and ferment, just as rural dwellers can. They can also tap into the deep currents of creativity that exist in cities, and the inevitable cross-pollination that occurs there, to foster change. That change can incorporate ancient wisdom that is in danger of disappearing, just as much as it can foster innovation.

Totally wild illustration of Sandor Katz by Nathan Fox, borrowed from CHOW. Excerpt was originally published by Grist on June 5.

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Who doesn’t love to kick off their Memorial Day weekend with a delicious cold beverage? You could be sipping one soon with Chelsea Green favorite Sandor Ellix Katz’s DIY recipe for home-brewed beer! The recipe does take a few weeks to ferment, however—- if you get going this weekend, you could have a batch to share in time for Fourth of July fireworks! Sandor is the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods.  

You can buy the book here—-on sale for 25% off: 

http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/wild_fermentation:paperback

Here’s a taste of the book Wild Fermentation, adapted for this email:

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Beer from Malted Grains

My friend Patrick Ironwood brews amazing beers in vast quantities. Patrick lives at Moonshadow, a homestead he shares with four generations of his family, including his two grandmothers, his parents, his wife, his brother and sister-in-law, and his newborn baby Sage Indigo Ironwood (three plant names!), as well as friends, interns, and visitors. The Kimmons-Ironwood clan’s woodland homestead is also home to an environmental education center, the Sequatchie Valley Institute. Patrick has been brewing since age fifteen, when his parents gave their budding do-it-yourselfer a homebrew kit and he made his first batch of beer for them.

Twenty years later, Patrick generally brews in 30-gallon (120-liter) batches and stores his beer in kegs, which involves much less work than bottling. After years of enjoying Patrick’s beer, I recently assisted him as he brewed a batch. I’ll describe his process adapted to a 5-gallon (20-liter) quantity. For a description of his setup for doing it in 30-gallon batches, see Wild Fermentation:

PROCESS:

1. Coarsely grind the malted barley. Just crack each grain into a few chunky pieces to increase surface area; do not grind it into flour, which would make the mash pasty and cause problems.

2. Heat 2 gallons (8 liters) water in a large pot to around 160°F (71°C). Add the barley and stir well. Room-temperature barley will cool the mash. Check the temperature; we are aiming to hold the mash at 128°F (53°C). Either add cold water or continue heating until the mash reaches 128°F (53°C). Then cover, turn off the heat, and leave at this temperature for 20 minutes.

3. After 20 minutes, heat the mash to 140°F (60°C). As you heat, stir constantly so grain at the bottom won’t burn. Once you reach 140°F (60°C), cover, turn off the heat, and leave at this temperature for 40 minutes. After 20 minutes, check the temperature and reheat if it has dropped more than a couple of degrees.

4. After 40 minutes at 140°F (60°C), heat the mash to 160°F (71°C), where it will remain for 1 hour. Check the temperature every 20 minutes and reheat as needed to maintain temperature.

5. After 1 hour at 160°F (71°C), heat the mash to 170°F (77°C), stirring constantly.

6. Meanwhile, boil about 1 gallon of water.

7. After mash reaches 170°F (77°C), strain it. Set a colander in a large pot or crock and scoop the mash-grains and liquid-into the colander. As the colander fills with grain, press it with a potato masher or other kitchen implement to release liquid. Once the liquid is pressed out, pour a few cups of boiled water over the grains to rinse off additional sweet residue. This procedure is called “sparging”. Press the grains and repeat the process. After sparging, spent grains can be fed to chickens or composted. Repeat this process until all the mash has been strained and you are left with just sweet, fragrant liquid, now called “wort”.

8. Return the wort to the cooking pot and heat to a boil. Add the malt extracts and stir. This thick, concentrated wort could burn, so keep stirring. Once it returns to a boil, add half the hops. Boil with the hops for 45 minutes; keep stirring.

9. After 45 minutes, add the Irish moss, which helps clarify the beer. Five minutes later, add half the remaining hops; eight minutes after that, add the rest of the hops. Boiling hops extracts bitterness but cooks off some of volatile aromatic qualities. Adding hops toward the end of the process (these are known as “finishing hops”) releases these volatile aromatics into the beer.

10. Once the wort has boiled for 1 hour, turn off the heat. Strain the wort into a carboy or other fermenting vessel. Patrick uses a 3 percent hydrogen peroxide solution to sterilize his fermentation vessels. If you are working with a glass carboy, add the hot wort slowly to avoid shocking and shattering the glass. Top off with additional water to make 5 gallons (20 liters). Be sure to leave a few inches of head space for the beer to foam, and seal with an airlock until beer cools to body temperature.

11. Once the beer cools, sprinkle on the yeast and seal with the airlock. Ferment about 1 week to 10 days, until it stops bubbling. Prime and bottle as described above.

- - -

If you enjoyed that, you’ll enjoy other recipes in Sandor’s great book:

http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/wild_fermentation:paperback

Thanks again for everything you do for the planet.

Margo Baldwin
President & Publisher, Chelsea Green

P.S. Keep those comments coming! Join us on Facebook and Twitter—-your feedback matters.

The article  below appeared originally online at CBN News about  Joel Salatin who authored The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

———

Joel Salatin is an outspoken, alternative farmer who wants Americans to think about what they eat and where it comes from.

And he thinks the Church should be leading the way.

His fresh approach has been featured in documentaries like “Food, Inc.” and books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is not showy or high tech. Its very simplicity is actually revolutionary given the state of agribusiness today.

Salatin does not confine his animals in cramped and filthy living spaces. Nor does he inject them with hormones or offer them chemically enhanced food. Such conditions are typical for most American farms today where efficiency and corporate demands dictate much of the animals’ existence.

One of Salatin’s main missions is to mimic God’s creation. That’s why all his cattle eat grass, not grain.  There are no pesticides, no fertilizers, and no hormones. Everything is natural.

Animals Living Together

“We move the cows every day to a new spot which allows the grass time to recuperate and go through its what I call ‘the teenage growth spurt,’” Salatin said.

On his fresh pastures, Salatin feeds his cows, hens and broiler chicks what he calls a ’salad bar.’ It’s simply a mix of all kinds of grasses which provide rich nutrients for the cattle and the other animals to follow.

Salatin’s innovative cycle builds all kinds of synergies from the different animals he raises. As opposed to corporate farms which promote a “monoculture,” such as all corn or all beef, Salatin pursues a polyculture.

The farm’s name “Polyface” promotes this idea of animals living together to leverage their God-given traits in such a way that produces maximum advantage for the farmer.

For instance, Salatin puts broiler chicks on the land where the cows previously fed. The shortened grass encourages their ingestion of fresh, tender sprouts.

Next, Salatin brings in what he calls the “eggmobile,” a sort of hen house on wheels. He drives it to a new spot each day and opens the doors so the hens can literally have free range on their pasture.

Along the way the hens dig through the cow patties to eat protein-rich larvae. Their droppings in turn fertilize the field all over again.

Theological Farming

Salatin believes the model creates healthy animals and ultimately, healthy people. And he believes it’s an approach that makes theological sense as well.

“It is how you respect and honor the least of these that creates a consistent ethical framework on which you honor and respect the greatest of these,” he said. “It starts by honoring and respecting the pigness of the pig and the chickenness of the chicken.”

Respecting these animals and their innate needs not only is good farming but foundational to a “God-don’t-make-no-junk” philosophy of life, Salatin said.

Salatin explains his views in-depth in seven self-published books. He’s a sought-after speaker on college campuses where he promotes local food and tears down anything hinting of corporate production.

Not surprisingly, he’s viewed with skepticism by many associated with agribusiness.

Salatin’s Congressman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. is vice-chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. He said Salatin is a good friend but he doesn’t agree with much of his philosophy.

“In my opinion, it’s not necessary to produce food the way he does it,” Goodlatte told CBN News. He added that Salatin’s prices are unaffordable for many consumers.

Salatin maintains good food is worth it. He also countered that processed food is often more expensive.

Plowing Future Fields?

There are those in Washington who think Salatin might just be on to something.

Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at The Center for Food Safety, said he’d like to see more research on Salatin’s approach.

“We need the U.S. Department of Agriculture to put as much money into studying how Joel Salatin does, so they can teach folks, as they do subsidizing the big operations,” Hanson said.

Around the country. Salatin has earned a loyal following.  At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill recently, his lecture sold out and fans quickly formed a book signing line afterwards.

Steve Gisselman was one such fan. As an assistant strength and conditioning coach at UNC, he’s read several of Salatin’s books and said Salatin has changed his thinking,

“I’ve really thought about where does my food come from?  Where am I getting it from?  Is it sustainable?” Gisselman said.

UNC food studies major Lauren Wilson said Salatin is influencing many young people who are considering farming.

“He’s a person out there showing it can be done and he’s been successful in various ways–environmentally, economically and socially” she said.

Inspiring ‘Loving Stewards’

If Salatin’s plans succeed he’ll help build up a new generation of farmers who subscribe to an all-natural approach. That’s why he’s so quick to denounce the negative stereotypes.

“We’ve got this cultural mentality that you’ve got to be an idiot to be a farmer” he told students at UNC.

Instead, he believes, the best and the brightest should be considering it.

“If we are wanting to take care of and steward our landscape, then we are going to need more loving stewards on that landscape,” Salatin said. “If it is to be done well, it is going to need excellent practitioners and more practitioners.”

Every year Salatin turns away hundreds of applicants wanting a shot at his rigorous apprentice and intern programs. Daniel Pike made the cut last year.

“I always wanted to farm but I didn’t think it was a real possibility,” Pike said. “You know, I need to go work in an office, work with computers and make money, make a living.”

Then Pike started reading Salatin’s books and began to see his dream as a viable option.

“There’s this alternative farming where people are making money,” he said. “Where it’s respecting of the animals and it goes in line with how God set up all the systems.”

Salatin said the good news is that many in the faith community are beginning to re-think their attitudes toward food and farming. And it’s home schooling families he says that are leading the charge.

“When a person is freed up to examine and then make an opt-out change as a strategic decision and then finds it soul-satisfying — ‘Wow, our kids are responding, our family is harmonious’– then they say, ‘Well, what else should we opt out of?’” he explained.

Creator, Not Creation, Worship

But Salatin still believes the church has a long way to go to fulfill the Biblical approach to literally eat and drink for the glory of God.

“It really disturbs me that the environmental movement has been co-opted by creation-worshippers instead of being encouraged by the Creator-worshippers,” he said.

The work on his farm has already inspired countless Americans to think more carefully about what they eat.

And if Salatin’s dreams come true, it will also energize the Church towards greater environmental stewardship and raise up a new generation of passionate farmers.

Read the original article here. 

NEW book The Mystery of Metamorphosis, A Scientific Detective Story by Frank Ryan is set to propel the work of a Port Erin marine biologist on to the world stage.

Don Williamson’s controversial theory of evolution – in which he postulates that evolution also occurs through hybridisation – is known in some areas of the scientific world, but this is the first time it has been introduced to popular audiences in the US and UK.

More than two thirds of the book are devoted to the work of Dr Williamson, who is described as ‘the iconoclastic modern-day scientist . . . whose studies of marine life led him to the boldest and most controversial theory of evolution since Darwin’s own’.

It charts Dr Williamson’s life, his upbringing in Seahouses, Northumberland, the discovery of his theory while lecturing at the Port Erin Marine Laboratory and his battle to gain acceptance of his theory in the scientific community – a struggle made far harder after he had a major stroke in 1990 that left him partially paralysed and, for a time, unable to speak, read and write.

‘It is quite weird reading a book about yourself,’ said Dr Williamson, 89. ‘It seems unreal, but at least he (Frank Ryan) has got his facts right. He does record my views and he made a very good job of it.’

And, he noted wryly, it is rather like reading his own obituary!

The island and Port Erin naturally feature in the book as Ryan casts his eye over events and the setting.

This means the book also reinforces the great loss felt to the scientific community following closure of the laboratory in 2006.

Dr Williamson described his ‘eureka’ moment.

‘When I was revising a lecture on larvae and evolution that I gave to honours BSc students, I pointed out there were various anomalies that could not be explained, but I did not go beyond that,’ he said.

‘But this particular year, 1983, I tore up my lecture notes and rewrote them.

‘I said that all these anomalies could be explained if larvae transferred between one group of animals and another. It was only in the subsequent two years I worked out it must have been done by hybridisation and must be done by the sperm of one animal and the egg of another.

‘ It’s more possible in the sea where eggs and sperm are broadcast and fertilisation is not in the female but in the sea. From time to time there is every chance eggs could be fertilised by foreign sperm, in most cases it comes to nothing but if it happens over millions of years, something will hatch out.’

His battle to gain recognition of his theory and have his papers published has been enormous.

Martin Angel, the editor of Progress in Oceanography, the publication in which Dr Williamson’s paper appeared, said: ‘Darwin would probably have had less trouble submitting a draft of the Origin of Species to the Bishop of Oxford.’

A very important part of the journey has been the support of Lynn Margulis, distinguished professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whom Dr Williamson first contacted in 1988 because his theory shared elements with her theory of cells.

She wrote the foreword to the book with her son, Dorion Sagan (whose late father was astrophysicist Carl).

The battle to get his papers accepted by scientific journals continues and he has written an entry in the book ‘Evolution from the Galapagos’ to be published next year.

Dr Williamson has also challenged other biologists to conduct experiments to prove hybridisation occurs and said he has had a couple of ‘expressions of interest’.

Gratified that Ryan’s book is helping to introduce his theory to a wider audience than ever before, he said: ‘I like to think Darwin would welcome it. He was a broad-minded man, and going back to Darwin’s time – although I didn’t realise it until well after I developed my theory – the first suggestion that larvae had been transferred was made by a young man at Cambridge, Frank Balfour. He had the beginnings of the same idea, he died up Mont Blanc, aged 31, before he could develop his theory further. He was tipped as the successor to Darwin.’

He added: ‘I’m reasonably satisfied that my theory has got so far – it cannot now be swept under the carpet so somebody will take it up in the future.

‘It should be Frank Balfour’s name attached. He wrote a treatise on embryology in two volumes, it was a massive thing. He was an international expert on the development of animals. The theory of larvae evolution was tucked in behind it.

‘He did not get anywhere as far as I got, but it’s the start of my theory.

‘Had Darwin and he lived, they would probably have developed it together and it would probably be mainstream biology.’

 Read the full article here. 

Prominent nutritionist and organic gardening advocate Joan Gussow spoke at the Wilton Library on the occasion of the publication of her new book Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life and Vegetables. She was introduced by Chef Michel Nischan of the Dressing Room Restaurant, whose book Sustainably Delicious: Making the World a Better Place Once Recipe at a Time is a well-regarded paean to the fresh local foods movement.

Nischan called Gussow’s writings and talks profoundly influential to generations of chefs, gardeners and farmers. Gussow (Ed.D.) is the Professor  Emerita and former chair of the Nutrition Education Program at Teachers College of Columbia University. Her book, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader is considered an extremely influential text on eating locally and seasonally, and this continues to be a major thrust of her speaking today.

Nischan’s restaurant also provided the food for the reception that followed. These sandwiches are shown in the slide show along with Nischan himself.

Gussow said that she hasn’t bought any vegetables in many years, since she grows everything in her 1000 square foot garden along the Hudson. She says that people should get used to eating locally and eating what is in season at that time of year rather than importing food from around the world. Apparently she feels it is Good For You to eat only the small number of vegetables available during the winter months regardless of their nutritive value.

Gussow is now 81 and has been working and writing in this field for more than 50 years. She told a few engaging stories about encounters with skunks and woodchucks. She also noted that her husband died 13 years ago and that she didn’t miss him at all.

Much of the interesting part of her talk came in the question period, where she made a number of helpful and ascerbic comments on the state of food and gardening.

Much of the main part of her talk was devoted to the repair of her garden along the Hudson which flooded seriously in the spring of 2010. You can see the damage and resulting repaired garden on her website, or you can buy her book. In fact she mentioned that possibility several times.

However, the moral seems to be that if you have a mansion overlooking the Hudson and put your garden in your front yard, it is going to flood from time to time, and that if you have substantial resources at your disposal you can hire people to fill in the low yard and replant all your plants.

Read the full article here. 

Marijuana advocates racked up big wins in this year’s session of the Colorado Legislature. Now they’re turning their sights to a bigger effort — full legalization on the 2012 ballot.Pot legalization backers hope to start gathering signatures as soon as this summer to put the question to voters. Given Colorado’s low signature threshold for ballot initiatives, which currently stands at about 86,000 people, they say they expect an easy path to the polls.

Colorado voters defeated a legalization measure in 2006, as did California voters last year. But activists here are regrouping for another push.

“We’re going to have a great legalization debate in 2012,” predicted Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute, a powerful grass-roots organizer that alerts marijuana advocates to lobby public officials on measures related to pot.

Lawmakers heard from activists several times during the 2011 session that ended last week, and they achieved some surprising victories.

Advocates defeated a proposal to set a driving-high impairment standard that was backed by law enforcement. They quickly squashed a proposal to ban edible marijuana, and dispensaries chipped away at some residency rules and other requirements through a revision of marijuana regulation that had been adopted the year before.

With lobbyists working Capitol halls and a network of marijuana patients packing committee hearings, Colorado’s pot community won over lawmakers on many measures intended to crack down on the nascent industry.

“With each passing legislative session, we’re seeing marijuana and the marijuana distribution system further entrenched and accepted in the state,” said Brian Vicente, head of Sensible Colorado.

Now they’re turning back to the public. Next month, SAFER Colorado and other groups plan to finish work on a proposed ballot measure to make marijuana legal for all adults, not just those with certain medical conditions. After getting the language cleared by state elections officials, supporters can gather signatures.

“We’ve had medical marijuana out there now for more than 10 years without any of the terrible things they said were going to happen. We haven’t seen an increase in accidents, in visits to emergency rooms, in crime — we haven’t seen increases in anything bad,” Kriho said.

Even a prominent critic of Colorado’s marijuana industry, Republican Attorney General John Suthers, said last week that he welcomes a debate on whether pot should be legal. Suthers has argued that recreational pot users have subverted Colorado’s medical marijuana program.

“We have a system right now of state-sponsored fraud,” Suthers said.

Suthers said he’d oppose legalization but welcomed another ballot measure on the idea. “At least a legalization debate will be an honest across-the-board discussion of whether we really want to make this legal,” he said.

Marijuana advocates believe they can win that argument, and they have reason for confidence.

They prevailed over law enforcement over setting DUI limits for THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Police backed a 5 nanogram blood-content limit. Marijuana advocates blasted lawmakers with e-mails and phone calls opposing the pot DUI bill, and a bipartisan group of senators rejected the measure.

The bill failed in the Legislature’s closing days after even some conservative Republicans complained the 5 nanogram level seemed an arbitrary indication of whether a driver is impaired. Pot patients toasted the bill’s demise with a victory party the final night of the legislative session.

“It’s great the Legislature didn’t take action on such a harmful bill that wasn’t grounded in evidence,” said Mason Tvert, head of SAFER Colorado, a pro-legalization group.

Pot advocates’ biggest loss was a new requirement that caretakers — people who raise pot for a small number of patients — be required to register with the state. Caregivers argued that health officials, but not police, should know who is growing pot, and they complained that making the caretaker registry public would put home growers at greater risk of theft.

Lawmakers stuck with the registry but exempted it from state open records law, blocking public access to the list of caretakers and their addresses.

That requirement came in a larger marijuana regulation adjustment that affects many aspects of how pot is grown and sold. The measure, which awaits the signature of Gov. John Hickenlooper, loosened residency requirements for non-owners who work in dispensaries and required pot shops to treat patient records as medical records, among other things.

Hickenlooper hasn’t said yet whether he’ll sign the bill. But the governor, along with lawmakers from both parties, seems to be shrugging off a warning letter sent last month by Colorado’s top federal prosecutor, John Walsh.

Walsh warned that state employees who administer marijuana regulations could risk federal prosecution. The letter was similar to ones sent by federal prosecutors in other medical marijuana states, including Washington, where Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed legislation to license marijuana dispensaries after the Justice Department said it could result in a federal crackdown.

Hickenlooper said that he didn’t share Gregoire’s fear that regulations would bring federal drug raids.

“If the medical marijuana facility is conforming to our regulations, I would assume the federal government will not raid it,” Hickenlooper said Thursday.

- By Kristen Wyatt, AP Writer

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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The PBS Series Edens Lost and Found originally aired in 2005. Here’s a 23 minute introduction to the series, which examines community renewal projects in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle.

From the clip:

Paradise can be found in our own backyards, in our neighborhoods, in our cities…It’s time for us to reclaim our obligation that was given to us at the dawn of time to become true caretakers of our world.

Check out the companion book.