Alison Ritchie

Ten years ago I made my first jar of sauerkraut with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

I was so intimidated by this alchemic process and was certain I’d poison my family. I checked the jar every single day like it might do something dramatic if I looked away for too long.

It didn’t poison anyone, but it did change something in me permanently.

Fermentation was the first time I understood - not from a book, from my own hands - what it actually means to work with something alive instead of forcing it into submission. You don’t control a ferment. You create the right conditions and then you trust it. You wait. You pay attention. You let time do its work.

It was also a huge piece of recalibrating my palate to more primal/bitter/sour/tangy flavours. This has actually become a whole piece of what I teach on in my container *The Living Year*

Cutting the processed, the refined, the shelf-stable fake stuff engineered to override your body’s own signals, and coming back to food that is actually alive is what I’m talking about!

There are so many health reasons to learn this skill, and don’t even get me started on the sovereign skills side of things. I’m going to share it all.

Over ten years and roughly a thousand jars later, I’m bringing a refined version of my fermentation class online.

It’s not a recipe dump. It’s the actual WHY and HOW behind it - what’s happening in that jar, how to trust your senses over a timer, how to make this a real rhythm in your kitchen instead of a hobby that dies quietly in your fridge after one attempt.

July 29. 6:30pm cst. Replay and recipe book included.

Bring your questions, your fear of botulism, we’ll talk about it honestly. 😉

🔗 is up in my b I o

The last picture in this series was from 2015… learning to ferment. 😝 Terrible pic but I had to include it. 😆