jews d

in
the

from the shops at

Lincoln Shopping Center

Advance America
Bling Bling
Book Beat
Bread Basket
Brenda's Beans & Greens
Conservative Cuts
Dollar Castle
Dr. Lazar DPM
Fallas
Fashion Elegance
Four Sisters Fashion
Lee Beauty Supply
Metropolitan Dry Cleaners
Metro PCS
Paper Goods Wearhouse
Payless Shoe
Rainbow Apparel
Sneaker Villa
Step in Style
Street Corner Music
Top That
T-Nails
The Suit Depot
McDonald's
White Castle & Church's Chicken

LINCOLN CENTER

Greenfield at 10 ½ Mile

20

August 30 • 2018

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continued from page 18

sage therapist who owns Detroit
Massage and Wellness, recalls how she
learned the craft: “I got started pick-
ling eight or nine years ago. I learned
to ferment pickles from Blair Nosan
(now in New York), who had been
teaching this craft in Detroit for years.”
She touts the advantages of having
a refrigerator filled with jars of fer-
mented vegetables.
“When I feel busy, it is so conve-
nient to have fermented foods around.
I have a fridge filled with already-
prepped vegetables — veggies ready
to go even without a cutting board. In
not a lot of time, I can convert a rou-
tine meal — say rice and a fresh item
— just sprinkle a handful of fermented
cabbage on that and it turns into a
satisfying meal. It takes the meal up
another level. “

FERMENTATION BENEFITS

The benefits of pickling are spiritual,
physical, physiological and social.
Spiritual: There is so much life
in a pickle jar. Unseen forces bring
about a transformation that arouses
awe, admiration and wonder. It is so
healthy for human beings to experi-
ence that wonder.
Physical: Lacto-fermentation gives
you the opportunity to take control
of the process. You can engineer the
flavor you like: new pickles, half-sours,
sour pickles. Just go along for the ride.
Taste the pickles, and you control the
process. You also control the ingre-
dients: Use only vegetables from a
local farmer or from your own garden.
Those are probably the most health-
ful, picked at the peak of ripeness,
right in season and transported only a
short way.
Physiological: We are just begin-
ning to learn how important probiot-

ics are to our health, which apparently
depends on microbes in our gastro-
intestinal tract. We have the idea that
sterilizing everything will protect us;
we have a fear of bacteria, of soil, of
dirt. But we also contain a diverse
community of microbes. Our immune
system, even our nervous system,
seems to depend on this diverse com-
munity.
Social: Community-building hap-
pens when you call a bunch of friends
to help process too
much cabbage from
the garden or the
market. You share
the work, and then
you share the fruits.
Carly Sugar, also
of Detroit, who
is director of the
Giving Gardens at
Carly Sugar
Yad Ezra in Berkley,
sees urban farming
and home fermentation as part of a
larger movement.
“Folks in the city are growing food,
building community and inviting
newer residents like me to join in the
work. There is a thriving local food
system as a result.”
Sue Salinger, managing director of
Hazon in Detroit, teaches pickling to
groups. “We were at Congregation
Shaarey Zezdek a year or so ago with
the sisterhood, hearing the wonderful
Rebecca Starr tell her story of grow-
ing up on a farm Up North. We broke
from that do-a-little to do-it-yourself
pickling — we made sauerkraut.
“As the intergenerational group of
25 men and women were cutting up
the cabbage, packing it into jars and
sampling spices, people began shar-
ing their stories of the best pickles
they ever ate.” •

continued on page 22