I’ve been keeping a busy social calendar lately. I’m dating, which means spontaneous drinks and coffees and sometimes meals, and the occasional hurried excuse and departure. I’ve been spending lots of time with friends and, in a couple cases, having folks over I wasn’t really planning on, which required me to make food I wasn’t intending on making.
These are a couple of the recipes that have emerged from my somewhat chaotic autumn social life, which can be made with things you probably have around and are frankly pretty delicious.
They include my homemade candied cherries for when the store puzzlingly has no cherries at all except fresh, and a vegan mushroom pate made for a memorable date with a now-friend who joined me for camping and snacks out on my acreage in Georgia.
The cherries are a simple way to make a pantry staple in a pinch. But the mushrooms! It’s become a favorite way to quickly use mushrooms when they go on sale, and is an ideal spread for sandwiches, whisked into stock for an easy soup, or just eaten like traditional pate all on its own on bread or a cracker.
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This weekend, I attended Mushrooms and Roses, an intimate, yet deeply magical herbalism gathering in the Burren in the west of Ireland. The space itself (a sustainable retreat and event space called Common Knowledge) is stunning, but what I especially love about attending and speaking at events like this is the synergy between the place and the event happening within it.
One of the big themes this weekend was place. At a time when we are so disjointed, not only from each other, but also disconnected from place and even from being present in our own bodies, to spend two days deeply reflecting on place and community felt like a wonderful gift.
One thing I noticed in particular was trust: How allowing myself to be connected to my community, and allowing myself to trust the land to host me, requires me to be vulnerable. Open. Willing to let down my walls and risk getting hurt because the rewards are so great that they are more than worth the risk.
We had a lot of conversations, in the car down and throughout the weekend, about decolonization. About centering the land as a partner in our conversations about where we go next. About treating place as a living being with a memory rather than something we just exert our experiences onto.
Place is a collaborator. Place can be a friend and partner too.
I think about this a lot in terms of fermentation, and the microbes who themselves are our ancestors and collaborators, who are a living embodiment of place. Want to get closer to the land you’re on? Grow something, then ferment it. Literally ingest the living flora and fauna that’s unique to where and when you are, and notice how things shift for you when you do that often.
If you want to learn more, I teach you how to do this in Rooted in Place, one of my sliding scale, online classes for the culinarily curious.
I left with renewed and new friendships, but also with a deeper desire to work more with place in my new home here in Ireland. The land feels both similar to, and different from, Georgia where I live in the US (though at this point I’m mostly here). I suspect part of this is geological (these mountain ranges used to be connected!) and part human (many Irish diaspora moved to the Appalachians). It’s a nuance that defies words and for the moment even my own understanding, and one I look forward to exploring more deeply.
I also led a group meditation, a live version of my mycelial meditations, which I offer in both online and in person spaces, where we imagined ourselves as part of an interwoven mycelial network. Where we let ourselves be a part of something bigger than us, and to really feel into what that means. It felt like a beautiful extension of the work being done overall that weekend, and I loved hearing what people saw and felt as we journeyed together (one big theme was badgers!)
I have a few more live events planned for October and am considering running some in November, December, and January too (if you want to host me or collaborate in Ireland, or in Atlanta, one of those months please reach out!)
But for today, I’m just basking in getting to spend time with the land, with people I like being around, and having the sorts of deep and generative conversations that I crave but can feel challenging to find in rushed modern life.
I’m recently off my book tour, or this round of it at least, for Essential Food Preserving(I plan to continue doing events through the next year or so: Reach out if you’d like to host one!)
I love book tours because they’re a chance to meet readers in person, a rare treat in a profession that primarily keeps me behind a screen in my home office. But the people who my books reach are the reason I do this, and the last couple months have been incredibly affirming as to why this work is so important.
People came to me with their stories and questions, and in particular, with stories of their desires to increase their own or their community’s resilience and preserving knowledge, and also to reconnect to the skills their ancestors had.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a tradition bearer, and the time feels ripe with possibility for those discussions to be happening more broadly.
In the food world in particular, we talk a lot about traditions and ancestral foods and “lost” skills, but there’s a level of nuance to it that we often miss, which is that 1. These skills aren’t lost BUT we do all have a hand in preserving them for the future and 2. Part of being a tradition bearer is also adapting the traditions to your life now.
Canning, for example, used to have different guidelines, so even if the way your grandparents did it worked for them, we now have better information about how to can in a consistently safer way. In other words: Use the latest, trusted guidelines (not aspirin canning or whatever other hot tip is trending this week).
But other practices, like lactofermentation, have remained largely unchanged through time in part because they are much less equipment heavy, and modern tech-heavy, and easy to do safely with limited means.
I’ll be doing a signing at the Patrick Street Eason’s in Cork city centrethis Saturday: If you want to grab a personalized, signed copy of Essential Food Preserving for yourself or for a gift, please come by!
Future events:
August 22, Cork: Book signing at Eason’s on Patrick Street, Cork City. Come grab a copy of Essential Food Preserving and have it signed and personalized by yours truly!
August 23, Cork [sold out]: Preserving Food, Preserving Food Stories workshop at the Night Coop, part of Heritage Week and generously sponsored by Cork City Council.
August 27, 1-2 PM GMT, online: Fermenter’s Guild talk on food writing, creativity, Essential Food Preserving, and crafting my crazy cobbled together career (and how you can craft yours). This one has lots of room for Q&A, so bring your questions!
Upcoming virtual fall workshops with me (enrollment opening soon):
Bloom, a workshop to build your own sustainable writing practice (now reimagined and even better!): November 2026
Reiki I training: Everything you need to complete Reiki I training. Certification is available for those who desire it. November 2026.
I also have additional spaces for monthly, recurring energy work sessions. These are remote sessions I run automatically for you each month without you having to lift a finger, and my clients love having this kind of support without having another appointment to remember.
TBD events that are currently in planning stages include:
-More fermentation and canning classes
-A talk at an arts symposium
-A ferment and forage pop up dinner
-An institute-style gathering for deep reading and conversation around tradition, food, and creativity
-And other goodies!
As a reminder, I’m also available for workshops for corporate wellness programs, community groups, private 1:1 sessions, or even just a fun evening for you and friends with a couple bottles of wine while you learn.
I also offer holistic creativity coaching and energy work (have you signed up for remote energy work yet? It’s pretty great), plus self-paced classes.
Questions? Want to collaborate? Want to work together in a way I don’t have listed here? Please reach out! julia@root-kitchens.com
(P.S. if you order your books through this link, even if you click through and buy other books, I get a small commission, which helps me focus my attention on writing and creating. Thanks for your support!)
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, the reader, as a glossed text. That is, the original text is presented alongside margin notes that were added in by a different reader (MFK Fisher), giving you a couple layers of text to experience and explore.
Next week I’ll talk about the experience of becoming part of that larger decades-long conversation through the margin notes of the book.
But this week I want to talk about the book itself, and the recipes inside (scroll down for a couple of my favorite recipes from this text, if you’re curious).
There are several layers of conversation happening in this text: There is the original text itself: Plagemann’s original 1967 Fine Preserving, a copy of which Fisher owned, and which sparked the publication of this annotated volume.
Fisher was, according to the preface, in conversation with friends about lost masterpieces, and said without hesitation that if she could revive any book it would be Plagemann’s. The book’s publisher happened to also be at the table and the rest, as they say, is history.
It was decided not just to reprint Plagemann’s book as-is, but to include the annotations Fisher made in her personal copy to produce a new version of the text.
The annotations go beyond “this is good” or “I don’t like this”, though those are present too: What struck me was that Fisher’s conversational tone also pops up in her annotations, particularly when writing out a specific food memory in the margins. It leads me to wonder if her original annotations were taken as-is or edited a bit for the published text (one assumes the latter), but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn Fisher’s margin notes read exactly as they do here in the original version.
Sometimes, this is accompanied by a recipe: And in the case of orange marmalade, she notes that she prefers her mother’s recipe, then offers it, as an extra treat of sorts, on the adjoining page. The annotations, then, are not just Fisher’s experiences, but an opportunity for us as readers to recreate those experiences in some limited way. To try Plagemann’s recipes, and some of Fisher’s family recipes, and bring the authors into our own kitchens.
There’s a temporal and geographic element to it as well: Fisher and Plagemann both note what ingredients they have in abundance where they live (e.g. Fisher, in California, talks about working with grapes and citrus in abundance). But the kinds of foods they serve the preserves with also speak to a way of eating that is very meat-heavy: The recipe notes for just about every fruit preserve say that it’s good alongside meat (a tendency that asked me to think more broadly about how I use fruit preserves, as someone who rarely eats meat, with fruit or otherwise). It feels, to me, like the cooking of a generation or two before my time, which it is, though Plagemann may also have been heavily influenced by German cooking, where in my experience this is more common.
And Fisher clearly tells us her favorites from this book: pickled seedless grapes and chermoula (scroll down to see).
Most of the recipes are for sweet preserves and pickles, with a few surprises, like cucumber ketchup (though readers familiar with Our Fermented Lives will probably remember that this has historical precedent: people make ketchups out of just about anything).
From a food preserving standpoint, many of the recipes hold up to my experience of what makes a good-tasting preserve, though I will say there are a lot more jellies in this book than I typically make (MFK Fisher, I learned, shares my lack of interest in making jellies, and we both find them overly finicky and prefer to make other preserves instead).
From a modern-day food safety standpoint, some of the practices are not ones I would personally share in a book (like sealing jars with paraffin rather than safely canning them). But also, I recognize that these processes were a part of food preserving’s history, and thus the book makes sense for the time in which it was written. The recipes I’ve made from this book so far are ones that work well as preserves kept in the fridge (I may, at some point, can some of them, but have not done so yet).
If you want to make your own, here are a couple to try, including Fisher’s favorites, and that cucumber ketchup:
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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 winter weather standards).
The first thing I do to mark the moment when I return home is to hug my pets (and maybe go to sleep). The second thing I do is make sauerkraut.
This morning, I woke up before dawn, and simmered a pot of good smelling spices on the stove to scent the house while I worked away on my fermenting projects.
I made sauerkraut filled with fragrant herbes de Provence, one of my go to blends, particularly in Springtime.
And I made this chili-lemon-garlic sauerkraut (below), studded with flecks of minced garlic and lime zest and cranked up a bit with dried chilies, which I crushed with my hands into the sauerkraut as I massaged the salt into the cabbage.
Along with these, I decided to share a few favorite recipes with you that are front and center in my new book, Essential Food Preserving.
These are ones that make the most of springtime flavors and ingredients, but most of all, offer creative license.
Right now, I know many folks are feeling afraid to feel joy, have fun, or share anything but serious news updates with others.
I’m challenging myself to reject that tendency, not because the news isn’t serious, but because I can’t thrive on seriousness alone. I thrive on reminders of why life is so beautiful and worth living and sharing, and that will keep me going and showing up for others for longer and with less burnout than cutting off joy ever would.
So in lieu of a doomscrolling session, I’m inviting you into the kitchen with me this week to make some food that brings you joy. Maybe it’s one of these recipes. Maybe it’s something else.
Maybe you cook during the middle of the night when you bolt awake and can’t get back to sleep. Maybe, like me, you start the day with preparing something that lets you just be calm and present. Or maybe you fit a few minutes of simple food prep (even just whisking together a vinaigrette you like) between the many blocks in your full schedule.
I’d love to hear about what you make (in the comments, or email me if you prefer), but most of all, how it felt to make something fun and just enjoy the moment. And, of course, if you shared it, I’d love to hear that too.
News: Announcing my next book + Earth Day classes
I alluded to the next book before, but now it’s official: The Little Book of Lemons, comes out in 2027 from Storey!
It’s full of history, recipes, folklore, home care, and a few lil’ lemon spells to bring the magic of lemons into your home. I can’t wait to share it with you!
Earth Day-adjacent group and corporate workshops are filling up: These are 1-2 hours covering 1-2 skills (e.g. fermenting, reducing food waste, infusing vinegars, foraging for spring greens, or mindfulness in the kitchen). Both virtual and IRL versions are available.
I’ve got a few more spots for early-mid April in person spots in Atlanta, as well as virtual workshops for folks outside Atlanta (these can be live workshops to your group, or recorded and shared with you).
So far that week, I’m doing two corporate fermentation workshops, each 1 hour long with 30-40 folks. I absolutely love doing these because I get to share the magic of fermentation with people who otherwise might not get a chance to learn it (and I usually get invited back to do multiple sessions).
Some folks also prefer to license out my recorded workshops, which gives everyone access to the class on their schedule.
If you’re still looking for a workshop to celebrate Earth Day (or any day), please get in touch: Julia@root-kitchens.com
And finally, Essential Food Preserving comes out in May (I’ve been busy!): For everyone who preorders you’re getting an extra special gift from me, and there will be a giveaway for US-based preorders in partnership with some of my favorite folks. More details on all of this soon but, in the meantime, please preorder so I can thank you with some extra gifts!
Your monthly recipe round up includes:
Chili-lime-garlic sauerkraut
Seasoning paste with preserved lemon
Flowerkraut
Working with stinging nettle (yes you can eat them, and yes they’re delicious)
Rhubarb and black pepper relish
Canning rhubarb
Rhubarb syrup
Keep reading for some of my favorite springtime foods!
Where I’ve appeared recently:
At Organic Growers School conference, where I’m presenting a full-day workshop on food preserving and community resilience with the amazing Ashley English. I’ll be there live-but-virtually due to Life Stuff, and I’ll miss getting to give you all hugs in person this year (we’ll make up for it next year).
I’m teaching simple lactofermented pickles and fire cider, as well as leading the group in a guided mycelial meditation and sharing ideas for using your preserving practice as part of mutual aid and community care.
I have more events planned through September/October that I’ll announce soon, but I still have space for more so, get in touch if there’s somewhere you’d like to see me or you want to book me to come speak or teach with you.
This month I’m also kicking off my 9 month holistic creativity coaching program, Symbiosis, which I rebuilt from the ground up to be ~1000x better, with new resources and focus areas that build on each other throughout the year.
This group workshop is 100% virtual, with 2 meetings a month (sometimes more), space for live coaching between calls, and a completely revamped and improved resource library.
The program includes practical strategy to build productive creative time into your week, alongside energy work, magic, and visualization practices to keep that forward momentum aligned with the most expansive, impactful vision of your creative life + work.
Folks who join can expect to leave with a drastically different creative practice (as in, more joyful and playful, and more sustainable and practical), and we’ll be weaving in some other fun stuff too, including free Reiki I training for those who want it.
Feel free to email me with questions!
Head here to join us: Paid subscribers remember to use your subscriber discount (send me an email, or check your welcome email, if you forgot it).
Make sauerkraut as usual and toss with the seasonings before packing into your fermenting containers.
For each head of cabbage, toss with zest of 1 lime, 3-4 cloves minced garlic, and 3-4 crushed small dried chilis (I used Burlap and Barrel’s whole Cobanero chilis).
I want this one extra crunchy so I massaged minimally and topped off the container with a bit of extra room temperature brine.
As always, adjust to your taste: More or less chili, massage the cabbage for a long time for a softer texture, or not at all for more crisp. Ferment for a while to get it more sour and funky, less time for a brighter flavor.
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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. They invite us to view and review ourselves and the world around us through a light that’s realistic, yet hopeful and optimistic too.
Where can we choose to focus our attention to build a future that’s more joyful? Where can we find small ways to invite in some ease, and some joy, now?
Here are some readings I’ve been enjoying in connection with joy and ease, in the kitchen and beyond:
I talk about digital boundaries often with my holistic creativity coaching clients and this approach, of replacing doomscrolling with something else that’s more joyful, is something that works well for a lot of folks (if you try it, let me know in the comments, will you?)
SPEAKING OF PREORDERS, my next book, all 493 pages of it, is available for you to preorder: Grab a copy at Bookshop.org (or Bookshop UK). It comes out mid-May (June 4 in Europe).
In my TBD pile: Continuing to apply for grants (I apply for 3-5 grants/month). I started this practice 4 months ago and, while the fruits of my labors haven’t paid off, yet, grant funding is in part a clarity of messaging game and in part a numbers game, so I know that my efforts will pay off. Even when I don’t get grants, the opportunity to put down what I’m doing in clear language, and to dreamweave about how I can continue to grow that work with additional resources, is priceless.
I apply for small business grants, since I’m a business owner, but also creative grants. Some grants ride the line between both, and I apply for those too, since being a professional writer is, in fact, a business.
I find grants through government portals and local small business resources, and through grants newsletters (there are tons of newsletters out there with awards, grants, etc., and it can be useful to poke around and find ones specific to your interests (like this).
And finally, the below was recently posted by chef Jacques Pepin on Facebook. I remember reading Levi-Strauss in undergrad in Psychology, and this inspires me to dive back in with the eyes of a food writer to see what new gems emerge:
“Brillat-Savarin said in one of his aphorisms, “You are what you eat. I believe that for many people “I am what I cook,” because I have been defined by my cooking most of my life. Claude Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist, describes the process of cooking in his seminal book, The Science of Mythology, as the process by which nature is transformed into culture. Well, going back as far as my memory can take me I see a kitchen in my vision of my mother, my aunts, my cousins, and I visualize that process in a specific dish for each of them.
Be well. -JP”
Where I’ve appeared in the media recently:
This article on adding sauerkraut to your Thanksgiving menu
Late last year, my Culinary Curiosity School classes were featured in The Guardian. It’s great to see that aspect of my work both recognized and placed within the larger conversation of experiential gifts (rather than gifting people clutter they don’t want or need).
As a reminder, paid subscribers get 30% off all those classes, always. Find the discount code in last week’s email or email me if you’d like a reminder.
For Produce Parties, I wrote a piece on the last words my mother told me along with reflections on how being raised in a strict evangelical church shaped my relationship to food. You can order a copy here.
Last year, I helped with the bibliography and some of the behind-the-scenes work on this book (yes, I do some book indexing, fact checking, formatting, etc. as I have space in my schedule), and it’s great to see it out in the world: The book is part memoir, part study on ableism in religious spaces, and blends both beautifully. It’s by far one of my favorite projects I’ve helped with in this way.
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 so, a win-win all around.
To thank you for your patience as I made the switch, I’m offering folks who stick with me as paid subscribers a free class, plus 30% off live coaching calls, to be used for anything from book proposal coaching to building a writing routine, to fermentation questions or energy work (I know, I’ve got range).
Details on all of that below!
Here are the classes I’m offering for free to paid subscribers (and to $5/month+ Patreon subscribers, if you want to go that route):
