#fermenting

03.21.26

What a day! Pretty much just farted around the house slowly doing chores while waiting for an event this evening. We have friends that run the local PSL chapter, and they collaborated with BIIN and the Migrant Justice Network to throw a fundraising and awareness show at our local alt dive! ❤️

Our friends in The Gobblinz were playing, plus an incredible band from Houston called Jump Rope and a talented rapper named Grasshopper from Beaumont. It was such a fun, motivational, and supportive event. I love my local alt community, they will always fight for justice for others. We donated as much as we could to help with legal council and bill pay for local families affected by ICE raids. Recently, 12 people in my tiny town were abducted by ICE.

The gal in the jean skirt with the kaffiyeh is our friend Bec, she's an incredibly talented, intelligent, and tactical organizer. She made it all happen. We had some great conversations about what we can do in times when we feel like we're being gaslit by society with how bad things are, when things feel hopeless, when we feel like we don't have anything to offer, etc. It was very encouraging.

I decided to wear makeup again lol, twice in one week?! And went for like a, idk, casual femme vibe? Trying to bust out of my dusty ag worker look lol. It was surprising for our musician friends who always come over and see me in stinky bee clothes or sweats and hoodies all day lol. I used to be cool!! *Shakes fist at cloud*

I bottled up some honey to give out to friends at the event, and bottled and back sweetened some of the American Beautyberry Mead I made way back in August 2025. It's had plenty of time on the rack to round out, and holy cow, it's STRONG and dry. But that's how I prefer it, not syrupy as most meads tend to come out. I always use a strong yeast for the fermentation process, and allow it to naturally ferment until it either consumes all the sugar or else-wise dies on its own. I'm bringing the mead out to our friend's family get together we've been invited to tomorrow! It's been a busy week for socializing!!

@dianasson tagged me to post four non-selfies!

My practice is currently revolving around communion with the land through foraging, harvesting and preserving (and eating and drinking) Morana and Jarilo’s gifts:

1. My first successful fermenting experiment—Midsummer native black cherry cordial, with a little additional sweetener on the side in the form of elderflower syrup.

2. I have been obsessively drinking mimosa (Persian silk tree) tea and drying the blossoms so I can keep drinking it.

3. My Ozark Midsummer Magic herbal tea blend: 3 parts blackberry leaves, 2 parts mimosa blossoms, 1 part shiso leaves, and 1/2 part wood sorrel leaves, blossoms, and pods. (It’s not a selfie if it’s just your hand, right?)

4. Midsummer nopales soothing skin gel made with eastern prickly pear cactus.

Tag you’re it:

We went to a kimchi class tonight! The cabbage was grown locally in a community plot, the carrots, onions, and apple are from the next county over, even the salt came from Lake Erie; we take local shit seriously here.

We've done some countertop ferments before with limited success; I feel optimistic about this one because the addition of fistfulls of chili flakes makes everything better.

Fermenting.

Only thing is that I got forgotten in the back shelf and keep fermenting and fermenting.

If you hate waste, you're gunna love Tepache. Tepache is a drink made by the Mexican first nations by fermenting pineapple. Specifically, the pineapple peel. If you've ever processed a pineapple yourself, you know that when peeling a pineapple, a lot of the fruit comes off with it.

Pineapple is a great fruit for Happiness, Friendship, Prosperity and Vitality. It was used by locals as a staple crop for food, medicine, and even fibers for clothing. Later the Pineapple was used by Europeans as a symbol of wealth and hospitality because pineapples were hard to get from the Americas to Europe.

When you Ferment something, you are introducing Transformation and Growth properties. It's also good for opening secretes or reveling a new truth.

So how do you make Tepache? It's probably the easiest fermented drink and is made very quick by fermentation standards. The draw back being it needs to be drank soon. It can turn vinegary very quickly. In a large quart jar, pack it with pineapple peels. You can also use pineapple cores, but you want the skin of the pineapple in there. That's going to be the source of the natural yeast.

Add about a third cup of cane sugar. You can use more sugar if you want it sweeter, but I like sweet and a third cup was plenty. If you can't find cane sugar, you can use brown or yellow sugar.

Add some whole spices. You can use cinnamon sticks, as that's the most popular. But you can also try cloves, all spice, dried chilis, ect.

Top your jar with filtered water. Lid your jar and give it a quick shake to help dissolve the sugar.

Remove the lid, and now cover with a cloth or coffee filter. Secure with a rubber band.

Now leave you jar out at room temperature. Check after two days. Things should be bubbling and you should hear a slight fizzing. If not, give it another day. If you live in a cooler climate you may need more time. Mine took about three and a half days.

Once ready, you can either strain everything and keep the liquid (this will reduce the fizz but give you a cleaner drink) or take the chunks out manually with a utensil (Save the fizz, but a chunkier drink)