Root is for curious eaters who want the stories behind their food, by author, fermenter, culinary educator, creativity coach, and food historian Dr. Julia Skinner.
Expect recipes, historical deep dives, fun food-adjacent essays, and the occasional surprise.
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On finding a foot while walking home from a grocery run
Here in Ireland, I don’t have a car, so groceries are gathered by dutifully wandering down the hill to the market, wheeled cart in tow. Or wandering further, into city center, to go to the Really Good Market (the English Market) for niche vegetables, fluffy bread, and very nice seafood. On one recent grocery excursion…
Keep readingConversations in the Margins (Part 2): Communicating across time and space with MFK Fisher and Catherine Plagemann
On the flyleaf of MFK Fisher’s annotated edition of Catherine Plagemann I wrote “I’m really excited about annotating this copy: Like being in conversation across space and time with both authors.” I jumped into the book, then, with some high expectations. I find few things as thrilling as a robust conversation in the margin notes…
Keep readingMy new book comes out tomorrow (and it’s your last chance to get a free preorder thank you gift)
It’s your last chance to preorder Essential Food Preserving before it starts shipping out TOMORROW. So exciting! I have been busy in book promotion mode, including media interviews and handling incoming emails for preorder bonus gifts. There’s a certain flavor of controlled chaos that comes with a book launch, and it’s one of the aspects…
Keep readingMargin Notes: MFK Fisher’s Annotated Edition of Catherine Plagemann
I love when serendipity brings a new book into my life. While digging around online for home repair stuff, I somehow, completely by chance, came across a copy of MFK Fisher’s reprint of Catherine Plagemann’s Fine Preserving. Published in 1986 by Aris Books (Berkeley, CA), this particular volume is interesting because it comes to you,…
Keep readingPreorder Essential Food Preserving, get a free online class (paid subscribers get 2 free classes!)
Plus, join me for a free virtual book launch event May 20th A short newsletter with a couple exciting pieces of news from my author world today: I’m releasing a new class, What Cans and Doesn’t Can, later this spring, and everyone who preorders Essential Food Preserving gets free access. This class does what it…
Keep readingBook preorder giveaway: Ohio Stoneware crock, Le Parfait, and other preserving goodies (plus other book news)
Essential Food Preserving comes out in less than a month (in the US, in about 6 weeks elsewhere), and as part of the lead up to the book’s release Storey publishing, along with some of my favorite preserving folks, are running a contest on Instagram for a bunch of free preserving goodies, along with a…
Keep readingStocking up without freaking out: Your April recipe round up includes simple food to make when you need some calm during chaos, plus ideas for feeding self and community this month
I’m deep in edits for The Little Book of Lemons (Storey, 2027), and preparing to launch Essential Food Preserving (releases next month!), while also running my own businesses. While my own life is chaotic in a good way, this is such a chaotic moment generally that it feels hard for us to catch our breath,…
Keep readingMy culinary connection to the NASA shuttle program
My grandpaw Julian worked on the shuttle program, and specifically on the guidance systems, as a Honeywell employee who was contracted out to NASA in central Florida. He, alongside hundreds of others, is a part of the program’s history and one of the people who paved the way to the current Artemis II launch, and…
Keep readingMaybe it’s time for our food systems to break up with fear and purity culture
If we want our relationship to food, overall, to heal or shift in some way, why not start with the relationship we as individuals have to the food in our kitchens?
Keep readingPeep(s) Show
I’m reviving a hidden talent Every year around this time, I reconnect with a not-so-secret favorite hobby. What started as a lockdown boredom-induced play on words has since spiraled into its own thing: the Pepys Peeps diorama. One of my best friends and I have been making Peeps dioramas for about 20 years (she once…
Keep readingMugwort: Magical and Mundane
I love building lifelong connections with plants, in part because they offer me a pathway to experience joy and connection in unexpected places. Mugwort (artemisia vulgaris) is used in Asia and Europe for both practical and magical purposes, and one thing that brings me a lot of joy about it is that I’m always learning…
Keep readingWhen the Excess is the Point: On Food Waste
In my article in the most recent issue of Eaten, on feasts, I talk about repurposing food waste in Early Modern English households. Repurposing waste was something done as a matter of course (and in many households and many places still is), utilizing simple techniques like making stock out of scraps. But there were other…
Keep readingCreative Ferments: Your March Recipe Round Up includes early access to recipes from Essential Food Preserving plus Chili-lime sauerkraut, fermenting with flowers, and more
I’m fresh off the plane from Ireland, landing back in my other home in Atlanta for 6 weeks. It’s a relief to get to give my cats a big squeeze and to see the sunshine for more than a few hours (I love you Cork, but this winter was extra gloomy even by our drizzly…
Keep readingThe privilege of stillness
Behind the scenes of my life, I’ve been working in fits and starts on little snippets of memoir, poetry, and other forms that push me outside my comfort zone. I’ve talked in the past about how meditating sitting still is a privilege (a concept I was introduced to by chef Jenny Dorsey years ago), and…
Keep readingReading list: Small wonders and falling back in love with writing
Joy and ease are the order of the day for me this month. It flies in the face of everything around us to proactively seek ways to feel either, but I feel we can’t get past the helplessness and stalemate of the moment without them. Joy, and ease, invite in possibilities we might otherwise miss.…
Keep readingWant to take my new food preserving class? Open this newsletter for access
The newsletter has moved over to WordPress. There are still stumbling blocks but, we are here! If you were a paid subscriber in Substack, your payments there have been paused, and you’ll need to upgrade your subscription by clicking below to access paywalled content here. It’s $3/month: Which is $2/month cheaper than Substack or Patreon…
Keep readingI wrote not one but TWO new books (plus a recipe I’ve been making since undergrad)
Hello friends, This week I’m sharing a simple recipe I started making in my early 20s, and wrote in the first of many homemade recipe books I gave to family each holiday: Printing them out on the library printer and binding them with whatever ribbon I had handy. But first a few things that are…
Keep readingWhat food preservation technology to use, when
The first-ever newsletter issue from my self-hosted newsletter platform! If you were a paid subscriber on Substack, head below to resubscribe and access paid content again (as promised, it starts at $3/month): Choosing a food preservation technique based on your kitchen equipment I recently designed and released a new course called Resilience and Community Care through…
Keep readingHistoric food as a path to the future
The messiness, and interconnectedness, of tradition and memory This is a (heavily adapted) talk from a women’s herbalism retreat I gave a handful of years ago. As we move into the new year, I’m revisiting this work and thinking about how it continues to shape me. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!…
Keep readingIt’s time to unclench your jaw
Your January recipe round up includes a favorite nervine tea, plus things to do with all those cranberries you bought I feel like December was a whirlwind. Beyond the usual holiday reasons, there was an air of tension, of shedding those last bits of old selves off to leave behind in the old year. Of…
Keep readingQuick poll
Cheaper subscriptions, or not having to hit buttons? Hi all! For ages now, I’ve been planning to move to a different platform for myriad reasons. In the next month-ish, I’m making the leap and need your feedback about what would better serve you: [[[[[jetpack/paywall]]]]] Option 1: I move to another dedicated newsletter service (Buttondown), move…
Keep readingHomemade lemon cologne
Plus, the launch of my new book-themed unisex perfume We’re beginning the year with scent, and in particular with the ways I work with scent using one of my favorite kitchen staples (by the way, would you like me to do a full newsletter issue devoted to making scent with aromatic, edible ingredients? Let me…
Keep readingHistorical inquiry as a contemplative and imaginative practice
A recent foray into using stream-of-consciousness journaling as a generative tool for exploring time and place I’ve always been someone who feels very deeply, and for whom experiencing something is just as important as understanding it conceptually. This is probably part of why I got into studying food: Because I can create and experience a…
Keep readingFeasting: Repurposing Food Honors the Hands that Produce It
Your December Recipe Round up includes sweet-and-savory persimmon sauce, reducing food waste in holiday meals, raspberry vinegar, and more Feasting is a big theme for me this month, beyond the usual holiday-related reasons. Having just handed in the final copy on a forthcoming piece about historical feasting practices (particularly in connection to food waste reduction),…
Keep readingThe trials and tribulations of Victorian silverware
And what they tell us about modern eating traditions and ourselves Be sure to read to the end for a thrilling and enchanting side note about being intentional with terminology when discussing historical periods! And, check out my classes as gifts for others or for you, if you haven’t already: from a class with practices…
Keep readingCooking from two historic cookbooks
And devising a modern recipe when comparing multiple historic sources All classes at the Culinary Curiosity School are 20% off with the code HOLIDAY (paid subscribers, use your paid subscriber discount code for 40% off). Unique online culinary classes make great gifts, and mine cover anything from reducing food waste to preserving family cookbooks to…
Keep readingReading list: Fermented futures
Two studies to spark your fermentation curiosity and hopefully, some conversation I love that I get to live a life at the intersection of scientific inquiry and unbridled, sometimes unhinged, curiosity. I thrive in interdisciplinary spaces, as I know many of you do as well, and when I saw these two studies come up in…
Keep readingBook awards, podcasts, and other happenings
Next book’s preorders are open! Plus gearing up for a busy autumn Just a few quick updates this week, as it’s been a bit since I’ve actually listed out the things I’ve been doing in any formalized kind of way. As always, I’m available for private classes, book talks, and really anything where I get…
Keep readingFall opportunities and your own customized writing retreat
Work with me on your culinary + creative projects through the end of the year I typically share current course offerings and private session availability in each week’s newsletter as they come up, but after a few requests to bundle it all in one place, I’ve pulled together this overview of all my fall and…
Keep readingCitrus season is upon us again
And time to make the recipe with the most unappetizing name in history Winter is citrus season here in the U.S., which means time to preserve fruits at their most luscious and flavorful. In Ireland, I’ve become accustomed to citrus that is passably good, but when you’ve lived for years near or in citrus-growing regions…
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