Fun with Fermentation!

Daily Hours: 4
Total Hours: 133

Last Thursday night was the "grand finale" of my practicum, the "Fun with Fermentation" event I organized with Slow Food-UW Madison.  I am happy to report that everything went off without a hitch!  I started off the event by introducing the presenter and talking a little bit about the Slow Food movement in general, and the work that the campus club does within the community.  Bradley, the presenter, gave a brief background on fermentation, but the majority of the workshop ended up being hands-on (which fits perfectly with the whole Bubbler aesthetic).  Bradley went around between the different stations answering questions and giving tips, and participants went home with an instruction and resource handout he had put together. We brought cutting boards, knives, containers etc. from the Slow Food Kitchen and a cooler full of produce from that week's farmer's market.  Although we had budgeted $200, the produce was only $30 and the two cases of pint Mason Jars were $20.  It was so nice to be able to use all the resources Slow Food has at their disposal, definitely a good example of a successfully negotiated partnership!

Participants had the choice to go home with either a jar of kimchi or sauerkraut, and those few that stayed until the very end were able to go home with both!  Twenty people came to the event, nine of which had pre-registered in advance through the website.  As we were all chopping and then "massaging" and packing the ingredients, it was great to walk around and overhear people getting to know each other and connecting about other fermenting projects (there were multiple side conversations about the state of people's sourdough starters).  Bradley also had brought a jar of kimchi he had made a week prior that was ready to eat and we all got to have a sample. I took an informal poll while flitting between tables, seeing where everyone had heard about the program; here is a list of how a few people heard about it:

• "Madison on the Cheap," a Facebook group that shares information about free and inexpensive events around town, picked up the event and posted about it.
• One woman said she regularly checks the Bubbler website calendar for interesting events.
• A couple saw the poster I put up in College Library.
• Another woman's friend told her about the event since the friend knew she was interested in making sauerkraut. 
• By far the most interesting though, was the couple who are traveling across the country organic farming and living out of their van for the summer.  They were just passing through town and saw the poster I had put up at a coffee shop!  And they even said they are going to add a post to their blog about it!

Clean up ended up being surprisingly easy, just wiping down tables and giving the meeting room a light vacuum.  We even had a jar left over to leave for everyone at the library!  I am so happy with how it all turned out, and it's great to see that unique and quirky adult programming can be a success within the "modern" public library.  To think that there was once a time when everyone had to be quiet in the library and no food was allowed!  Look at us now, chopping and fermenting right in the meeting room!  It was a perfect last hurrah and final event to wrap up my practicum experience!

And finally, here are some pictures:

Packing kimchi.

Bradley Meillinger (in the grey shirt), the workshop leader.

"Massaging" the sauerkraut.

Workshop handout and kimchi.

Kimchi ready to ferment.

Sauekraut.