Our Next Community Event: Fermentation Picnic & Crafting Summer Drinks

+ Updates on my Fermentation Journey

Hello friends,

It’s been a very busy June. Two weeks ago we had our last Miso Introduction class for the season and a lovely foraging Fermentation Fundamentals weekend retreat with our friends at Flämingo Farm. Together we wildcrafted green elderberry capers, whole cabbage kimchi with onion blossom, kohlrabi & wild greens achar, red currant cheong, & strawberry rhubarb hot sauce. While the retreat rounds out the last of our introduction courses this summer, I’m happy to announce our next QU community event!

Community Event: A Fermentation Picnic

Community events are designed for students who have attended our previous introduction courses or have some decent fermentation experience under their belt.

Summer is absolutely one of the best times to ferment as so many amazing ingredients are available, and our community events are meant to bring people together and do something fun and delicious together. I hope you can join us.

The Picnic

Show off your fermentation skills! Bring your spiciest kimchi, your sourest sauerkraut, your most flavorful miso butter to spread on bread in a fantastic picnic feast. Come and meet other fermentation foodies and enjoy a refreshing cocktail in the heat of summer.

Bread will be provided to accompany our spread of fermented pickles & co. but feel free to bring any additional accompaniments that best complement your ferment.

Crafting Summer Drinks

This community event will also be an informal exchange on how to use fermentation processes to craft summer cocktails (or mocktails). Along with some prepared cocktails & non-alcoholic fermented beverages, I’ll be bringing along a copy of one of my favorite reads at the moment, Slow Drinks by Danny Childs so people can have a look through and get some ideas for themselves at home.

Details
July 21st
13hr
Volkspark Friedrichschain*
*Exact location announced in Telegram group.

How to Join

If you have taken one of our classes, join our Telegram group for the QU Community. (That’s right, we moved to Telegram! One last group to rule them all.)

If you have prior fermentation experience but have not taken a class with us and would like to join our community events, we have a few waitlist spots for each event. Please email qu.fermentation@protonmail.com to join.

Updates on my Fermentation Journey

After over a year of working on fermentation projects for the Michelin-starred Bandol sur mer, I recently left my position there for a role as head of fermentation at the up-and-coming vegan Japanese restaurant, Oukan. Goodbye goat cheese miso, hello Japanese ferments. I’m excited to see how this journey will shape me and push me to define my style of fermentation.

For those of you who haven’t followed my journey for long, I started off as a recipe developer for a food startup in Berlin in 2021. Before Berlin, I had been working on and off in bakeries throughout my early twenties in New York but with no real plans to get deep into gastronomy. Working as a recipe developer for startups quickly turns food into drudgery; after a year or so my boss got increasingly pushy about cutting down on cook time, using less ingredients, and adhering strictly to a cookie-cutter meal format. Bored and uninspired, I started a fermentation supper club in Berlin advertised mostly through Instagram.

In my time off from work, I was fermenting, experimenting, prepping, and planning for these supper club dinners. My partner Simone did wine and tea service for these small, intimate dinners in our apartment with just six guests and five courses. Our fridge was perpetually full with weekly prep for the club, leaving only a small corner for our own home groceries the entire month each menu ran for. It lit a fire under me.

I only offered four menus before doing my first popups in restaurants throughout Berlin and connecting with the online fermentation community. I went deeper and deeper into my own research. I hungered for more beyond what the contemporary koji literature could teach me. I started reading research papers, scouring the corners of the Internet, and experimenting on my own to rediscover tastes I knew from my childhood. I found out my grandfather, who I never knew, had made his living by making and selling douchi, one of the oldest forms of fermented soybean that is still widely used in Cantonese cooking today.

Last year QU Fermentation Studio was officially given a name and I started offering courses in fermentation. I found joy in teaching and sharing this way of working with time and microbes. I staged and held a popup at the Korean American sool brewery Hana Makgeolli, which gave me the opportunity to go back to my native NYC and use my skills in a city that I will always adore for its fabulous food and contradictions. This year I will have the opportunity to make and work more with qu, the wild fermented starter that contains koji and so much more.

My journey has been only a few years but I am grateful to those who have helped me along the way and given me opportunities despite having no long resume in professional kitchens, in research, or in production spaces. I come from a printmaking background, and working with precision and caring about craft has carried me this way so far. I am humbled to have so much support and belief from the people around me. This is a small thank you to all of you who continue to watch this project grow and evolve.

Thanks for reading.

Polly