Entries associated with the tag "Nance Klehm":

Rumors have been bouncing around for a while about a September visit from self-described "fermentation fetishist" Sandor "Sandorkraut" Katz, author of the natural-fermentation gospel Wild Fermentation. Now local host Nance Klehm confirms: Katz'll be doing two workshops next month, one on wild cidering and one on kimchi, as well as giving a sort of lecture-demo on fermentation basics. Workshop space is limited, so get your name in early if you're hungry for kraut; there's room for about 50 or so at the talk.

Here's the skinny:

You don't know satisfaction till you've shook your own butter. I did for the first time this weekend, at one of Nance Klehm's Living Kitchen workshops, and to steal a phrase from one of the other workshoppers, holy Matilda! I skimmed the cream from a gallon of raw milk, decanted it into a large jar, made sure the lid was on tight, and started shaking. I shook and shook and shook until, just when I was wondering what the hell I was doing and just how bad this might be for my repetitive stress injuries, I heard a thunk. Voila--milk into butter (and buttermilk) in one moment of simple kitchen alchemy. Judging by the whoops of excitement around the table as the six other participants each felt her thunk, the magic was contagious.

The class, Raw Cheese I, covered the basics of making butter, yogurt, ricotta, and clabbered milk cheese. Working with gallons of liquid gold procured from the northland, Klehm walked us through the makeup of milk in its various varieties (cow, sheep, goat, buffalo . . .) and the processes by which the USDA strips it of most of its best elements through homogenation and pasteurization. Fresh raw milk (which Nicholas Day wrote about for the Reader in August 2005--the link is a PDF), argue its legion fans, not only is easier to digest, because it hasn't had all the lactase (the enzyme that makes it possible to for us to digest lactose) bled out of it, but also tastes great--rich and grassy and alive. Because the fat globules haven't been pulverized by homogenation, it's also a lot easier to work with. To demonstrate, Klehm tried to shake butter out of a pint of ultrapasteurized organic cream and got nothin' but a lot of froth and bubbles. Recipes like this one for using store-bought ingredients suggest heavy whipping cream that's sat in the fridge for a few days;  to find raw-milk sources in your area, try realmilk.org's "where" page. 

Milk in its natural state wants to be cheese*, and to help it along all you have to do is provide it with heat and time, and maybe some friendly enzymes. We made a tangy clabbered cheese from raw milk (note: this won't work with store-bought milk) that had simply been left sitting on the counter for four days, at which point it followed its nature and separated into curd and whey. Strain off the whey and let the curd drain to your desired point of dryness. Mix with a dash of salt and some fresh herbs (try basil, rosemary, or dill) and you've got a spread for your morning toast.

Ricotta and yogurt require the application of a little more heat, but are still pretty easy. Heat some milk to 160 degrees for 90 seconds, then let cool to room temp. Add a starter (plain, additive-free yogurt from the store works fine--yogurt begets more yogurt) and then just keep it warm for 24 hours--wrap the pot in a towel and stick it on the radiator or in an unlit oven or--my fave--pour it into a Thermos and snuggle into bed with it (though this method may be more appropriate in January).

For ricotta, heat milk to 185 degrees, then add some acid. Klehm uses lemon juice, which may not be local but gives the cheese a certain lemony zing. In seconds the curd will pull together; strain through some cheesecloth and you're good to go.

I'd planned to go on Klehm's urban foraging walk (which she offers about once a month) earlier the same afternoon, but given the heat decided to lie low with a trashy novel instead. Still, I got to sample some of the bounty when the five-hour class broke for a snack. In addition to clabbered cheese and fresh butter we noshed on home-baked bread, a wild pickle of daikon, cauliflower, and kale; kale salad with a tahini dressing; some crazy pickled garlic made with chilies and smoked black sea salt; and a giant bowl of juneberries (or amelanchiers) picked that day from a grove that runs west along 13th Street between Damen and Hoyne.

*A realization Klehm came to after accidentally leaving a few jars out on the counter for days while tending to a bad case of poison oak.

After taking Nance Klehm's "wild pickling" workshop last fall, I spent the winter trial-and-errorring my way through jar after jar of homemade kimchi. Some of it was spicy enough to put hair on your esophagus, and one batch was so salty it could strip paint, but it was an easy and (mostly) delicious way to keep veg in my diet through the darkest months of the year, and I'm fairly confident my boosted sour-cabbage consumption kept the flu and other bugs (mostly) at bay. So I was excited to get an e-mail this morning announcing a new slate of "Living Kitchen" classes for spring and summer. In addition to pickling (three ways, with brine, whey, and vinegar), Klehm's offering classes on cheese, sourdough bread, herbal tinctures and salves, and "urban foraging." Workshops on mead and floral wine, wild cidering, canning and dehydrating food, and more are planned for the late summer and fall.

Her message sends wanna-be students to www.spontaneous.vegetation.net for a complete schedule, but the link appears to be broken at the moment, so I'm pasting the info below. Space is limited; RSVP to nettlesting[at]yahoo.com for more info and locations. Discounts are available if you register for more than one workshop.

Three-way pickling, Wed 4/11, 6-9 PM, $50

Wild sourdough starter and bread making, Sun 4/15, 1-4 PM, $50 

Raw cheese #1 (cultured butter, buttermilk, crème fraiche, yogurt), Sun 5/6, 1-5 PM, $60

Raw cheese #2 (cottage cheese, queso fresco, mozzarella), Sun 5/27, 1-5 PM, $60

Local medicine (tinctures, salves, syrups, lozenges, teas), Sun 6/24, 1-5 PM, $50 

Urban foraging walks are planned for Sun 4/20, 5/12, and 6/16, 2-4 PM, by donation

I've lived in the same West Town three-flat for more than ten years and, like anyone who stands still that long in the city, I've seen the neighborhood change radically around me. Some of it's been for the better, some of it for the worse, but few upheavals bummed me out more than when the crumbling cottage next door was sold to a developer and my neighbor Nance Klehm had to move. An urban gardener, artist, and landscape designer, Nance and her lush backyard were a generous source of fresh herbs and monster zucchini, and one of my favorite summertime memories is still of the day in the mid-90s when a friend who worked for the Heifer Project showed up to leave a half-dozen fuzzy ducklings in Nance's foster care -- the friend's boyfriend having had it up to here, apparently, with his bathtub doubling as a duck nursery.

In the intervening years Nance's had her hand in various projects, all investigations of the wilder side of urban ecology. She's led foraging tours, created a seed bank, and started a "neighborhood orchard" in Little Village. In 2004 she planted a shopping cart with corn and enlisted people to push it across Chicago for the summer. For the "Urban, Rural, Wild" exhibit at I Space last year she set up a rack of garments, their pockets full of seeds, and urged gallery drifters to put them on, go outside, and scatter seeds around the neighborhood. 

Lately she's gotten into fermentation: she says her piece Host: Colony, part of "Negotiated Localities," a group show opening Friday at the SAIC's Betty Rymer Gallery, is "all about wild yeast, literally and metaphorically." In conjunction with the exhibit she's offering three free workshops this month on making bread (11/16), pickles (11/19), and mead (11/29). All three classes are from 6 to 9 PM in the second-floor kitchen of the J. Ira and Nikki Harris International Hostel, 24 E. Congress Parkway. Enrollment's limited to 20 people per class; register by calling 773-443-3703.