It was an honour and a pleasure to host American food legend and fermentation pioneer Sandor Katz for a fabulous festival of talks, workshops and Q&As all accompanied by live jazz, plant based delights, a Japanese 3 course menu, free ferments and goodie bags galore.
There was quite a line up Sandor was joined by a stellar cast of foodie innovators, including book author and forager Monica Wilde, plant based chef Lauren Lovatt from London’s Plant Academy and Japanese fusion food from Bristol based restaurant Tsukemono who were all on our our organic farm at the invitation of Sheepdrove based fermentation and food artisans Martin and Patka of Suur.
The event spaces in our green building and outside in the tree lined courtyard and organic herb garden were buzzing with a diverse and dynamic audience on a mission for great gut health and even greater flavour. We took a tour around the reed beds, wildlife ponds and lake which make up our constructed wetlands that recycle our waste watering returning it at bathing standard to the aquifer. A stroll though our ancient woodland and a visit to the field (now growing wheat) which is home to our ground source heat pump harvesting energy from the earth to heat our farm offices and event venue.
We were delighted that Dan Saladino of BBC Radio 4 Food Programme was one of the guests and stayed on to interview Sandor down by the lake at our off grid farm stay The Boathouse. If you’d like to listen to the programme and watch a video of the day’s proceedings check out Suur’s video at https://youtu.be/BCV3_Los6pA
