How I Became a Freak.

Exactly a year ago, I published my first blog post. It was not a coincident that it happened right before Christmas; I started blogging out of excitement that I would have the proper Christmas Eve Borscht for the first time in ten years. You see, I grew up on Fermented Food and have always loved it, but never had to ferment myself; you can buy proper raw Fermented Food in every food shop, store or market in Poland.

After moving to Ireland a decade ago, I switched to jarred sauerkraut and cucumbers supplied by numerous Eastern European shops. They are decent products, even though pasteurised, and NOT PACKED WITH VINEGAR as claimed by one of the Irish fermenting gurus, recently.

All this time, however, I had painfully missed the proper Christmas Borscht made with fermented beetroots. When my pain became more intense than my laziness, I ventured to make it myself after being given detailed instructions by a friend. It was so easy and so tasty that I decided to enlighten the rest of humankind, thus started blogging. And fermenting, of course.

Over the last year, I fermented dozens jars of vegetables and perfected my own ‘lazy recipe’ for Sauerkraut. It will be presented to the attendees of my first workshop on 8th of Jan.

Due to networking with fellow fermenters, I became an owner of my first Kombucha scoby and Water Kefir grains and managed not to kill them. One afternoon a week is a ‘Kombucha minding’ day and I find it extraordinarily relaxing.

So, here we have Christmas again. A jar with Beetroot Kvass has been long ready to cook Borscht; in fact, a few jars, just in case.

I cannot wait for the Christmas Eve dinner…

Thank you to everyone who bothered to read my blog over the last 12 months and those who came just now.

Have you all beautiful Christmas!