Kitchens from the Spadina House museum in Toronto, restored to their style from the 1920s

This month I have tidied up my bathroom and the pantry! But I am not really glad. I live with my parents, who are not into decluttering so I was not able to get rid of things… So we kept almost everything (including things I perceive as trash). 

• books - 2 gave away, 1 sold
  
• septum rings - 2 sold
• coaster - sold
• badge - sold
• Tarot cards - sold
• barrettes - 2 sold
  
• broken barrette - thrown away
  
• calendars - 3 thrown away
• some drawings - thrown away
• sketchbook -  thrown away
• notebook - thrown away
• some documents - thrown away
• old cosmetics - 10 thrown away
• fabric conditioners - 2 thrown away
• old bra - thrown away
• bowls - 2 thrown away
• boxes - 6 thrown away
• a lot of small boxes (counted as 1)
• disposable razors - 4 thrown away
  
• old toothbrushes - 2 thrown away
• old sponges - 2  thrown away
• broken hanger - thrown away
• scoop -  thrown away
• dishwashing liquids - 2 thrown away
  
• decorative tins - 4 thrown away
• decorative jar - thrown away
• hairbands - 3 thrown away
• foils - thrown away
• some old safety pins - thrown away
• charcoal for drawing - thrown away
• knife covers - 2 thrown away
• expired spices - 7 thrown away
• expired eye drops - thrown away
• small jars - 3 thrown away
• plastic cutlery (random pieces collected over long period of time) - thrown away
• toys - 2 thrown away
• broken baking mold - thrown away

… and a lot of actual trash. I did not count most of “small things”, but instead I counted it as (for example) “foils”.

I have decluttered 432 things of 1000. 

I have also bought a lot of new things this month (about 17 items), so I am planning to declutter more in April, but it is getting more difficult ;)

Greetings! 

Fermentation - some great resources

So recently my sister went to a fermentation workshop and came home with a bunch of interesting stories about how fermented food is evolved and how healthy it is. She also showed me her first sauerkraut which she made during the course. She really pulled me into fermentation this year. I can’t stop making fermented veggies! I’m mostly into fermenting beets, carrots, and cucumber (see the images), but I really want to ferment anything which I can lay hands on!

Actually fermenting in Hungary is not a new thing at all. My parents and my grandparents did ferment a lot of things, my dad still ferments cucumber (“kovászos uborka”) with a slice of bread on top of them, in the sun every summer. But most Hungarian fermented vegetables have some kind of vinegar and preservative in them, which I don’t really want to use in my ferments. (My grandma also put preservatives in her amazing sliced cucumber+paprika pickles.)

So this year I really got into fermenting (without preservatives of course) and I wanted to share some useful links and resources with you here to help you start doing it yourself too!

Super useful fermentation videos

If you are not sure if you are interested or not, I just recommend you this video which surely help you get into the mood:

If you want to learn more about fermentation itself and how it works and why it is important, I recommend you to check this video out with Sandor Katz.

And here is a video about how to make a super simple sauerkraut:

Great books about fermentation

So here are some useful books too:

• Sandor Katz - The Art of fermentation
  Okay so Sandor Katz is my personal little God, he is like Michael Pollan or the Hungarian Vajda Józsi for me, the master. So this book is HUGE and it’s very very detailed. I still keep reading it, I really recommend you to get this book if you want to totally submerge yourself into this topic.
• Tara Whitsitt - Femrentation on wheels
  I didn’t read through this book entirely, I just flipped a few times through and used its recipes sometimes. I really like the small illustrations in it. If you are desperately in need of fermented recipes, I think this book can help you.
• Leda Scheintaub - Cultured Foods for Your Kitchen
  I wish I would have this book, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to lay hands on it yet. This is basically a cookbook mainly about what to cook from fermented vegetables if you don’t want to eat them just simply from the jar.

‍ How to ferment anything without a recipe?

I really hate using recipes every time when I prepare a jar of fermented veggies. It’s much easier to use a certain salt-veggie ratio. In this case instead of following a recipe you just have to:

• Mesure your veggies (and your water too if you use the brine method)
• Add 2%-2.5% salt to your veggies (multiple the final weight of your veggies by 0.02 or 0.025)

Here is a great video explaining the method: