This 4-day, 7-class intensive workshop will teach you everything you need to know to nourish your family with the most nutrient dense and bioavailable foods from sourdough bread and fermented vegetables to pate and traditional cheese made by you in your own home kitchen!
Learn skills to create nourishing meals – made entirely from scratch – for your whole family in your home kitchen
You have been asking for an intensive cooking class where you can commit to learning how to eat like a human over a few days with like-minded community members focused on nutrition. We are excited to offer you this opportunity in February where you will get a chance to reconnect with your food, and understand what you should actually be putting into your body. This 7-class package will have you cooking and eating nutrient-dense, real food from sourdough bread to fresh yogurt to fermented carrots to pâté to fresh mozzarella cheese!
In this ever-changing world, it seems that nothing is constant anymore, or even guaranteed for that matter. But this – your health, the food that you put into your body and own connection with – is something you have complete control over.
Taking this Intensive will give you the tools and knowledge to make this healthy and delicious food in your home kitchen.
It’s time to Eat Like a Human again. Are you with us?
4 – Days of Learning how to Eat Like a Human in 7 Unique Classes!
Itinerary:
The 4-day intensive starts at 4:00PM on Friday February 17th and kicks off right away with a fermented vegetable class. Class will be followed by a special 100% scratch made sourdough wood-fired pizza dinner. You have the choice of making and cooking the pizza yourself or we can do it for you! The remaining three days of class, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, all begin at 8:00 am with coffee and breakfast followed by the first class of the day at 9:00. We will then break for lunch from 12-1. The second class each day will run from 1-4. Breakfasts and lunches are included and will be cooked by the Modern Stone Age Kitchen team. The afternoon class each day will end around 4:00 and you have time to walk around Chestertown or enjoy any of the other quaint Eastern Shore towns. Dinner Saturday and Sunday will be on your own. The 4-day intensive ends when the afternoon class finishes on Monday, approximately 4:00 pm. Lodging options are available through the Chestertown website.
Classes Included:
Fermented Vegetables
Fermented Dairy (butter, yogurt, kefir)
Cheesemaking
Nose-to-Tail Butchering in Your Home
Cooking with Offal
Sourdough Mother
Sourdough Bread
Friday February 17, 2023
4:00 – 7:00pm | Fermented Vegetables
Lacto-fermentation is one of the most important food processing technologies our ancestors ever created! Not only does it have the power to make plants safer and more nutritious, but it also enhances the flavor, aroma and texture of our food. Just think about the difference between raw cabbage and delicious, probiotic sauerkraut.
This fermented vegetable cooking class will cover the basics of lacto-fermentation including:
Sourcing high-quality ingredients and essential fermentation equipment for your kitchen,
The basics of lacto-fermented vegetables,
Recipe development and execution,
Prepping vegetables, scaling ingredients, initiating and controlling fermentation,
Fermenting whole vegetables (such as carrots which are perfect for school lunches), and cut up vegetables such as cabbage for sauerkraut and kimchi
You’ll leave prepared with multiple ferments to start bubbling on your counter to help nourish your family
Saturday February 18, 2023
9am – 12pm | Fermented Dairy: Butter, Yogurt & Kefir
This introductory course will cover the basics of dairy fermentation in a way that empowers you to begin to create your own fermented butter, kefir, and yogurt in your home!
We will cover all the following steps:
Sourcing the highest quality dairy possible and navigating the confusing grocery store dairy aisle,
Obtaining essential tools and supplies for fermenting dairy in your kitchen,
Handling both raw and pasteurized dairy safely,
Initiating and controlling the fermentation process with both raw and pasteurized milk,
Making both Mesophilic and Thermophilic yogurt,
Making fermented cream (crème fraîche, crema)
Making fermented butter and buttermilk,
Making cream cheese,
Making kefir.
1pm – 4pm | Cheesemaking Class
You can make real, nourishing and delicious cheeses in your home kitchen using traditional methods that produce a superior product in every way to anything you can buy at a store. Once you understand the process you only need 3 ingredients – milk, rennet and salt – to transform milk into its most delicious and nourishing form possible for our bodies!
This class will walk you step-by-step through the process of making stretched curd cheeses (mozzarella & ricotta) and cover everything from:
Initiating and controlling the fermentation process with both raw and pasteurized milk,
Using rennet and setting the curd,
Cutting, heating and stirring the curd to produce different results,
Making brines and storage solutions,
Stretching the curd and shaping different pasta filata cheeses including mozzarella, quesillo and Armenian string cheese,
Making ricotta.
Sunday February 19, 2023
9am – 12pm | Introduction to whole animal butchering in your kitchen
Butchering whole and large cuts of animals in your own home is more accessible than you think and is the number one way to ensure that you and your family are including animals in your diet in the most nourishing, ethical, sustainable, and economical ways possible!
This butchering class with cover the basics of home butchering including:
Sourcing high-quality animals and essential butchering equipment for your kitchen,
Safely handling meat, fat, bones, and offal
The basics of breaking down a whole chicken utilizing a nose-to-tail approach
The basics of breaking down a whole pig utilizing a nose-to-tail approach
Recipe development and execution
Grinding, packing, and storing
1pm – 4pm | What to do with the odd bits: Offal
Blood, fat, and organs (AKA offal) are the most nutrient dense and bioavailable parts of an animal. Including them in our diets not only nourishes us, but ensures that we are using animals in the most ethical and sustainable ways possible.
This offal class will cover topics such as:
Sourcing, cleaning and storing organs
Bone broth
Rendering fat & making cracklins’
Chicken liver pate
Deviled kidney and spleen
Pork rinds
Monday February 20, 2023
9am to 12pm | Sourdough Mother
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles. We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products. All students will bring their own sourdough mother so they can start baking sourdough at home.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build,
starting, maintaining, and feeding your sourdough mother, and
recipes for cooking with mother – pancakes, waffles, batter, crackers and beer cheese!
1pm to 4pm | Sourdough Bread
This introductory course will build upon the sourdough mother class and cover the entire process to make successful sourdough loaves in your home oven from:
Sourcing high-quality ingredients and essential bread-making tools for your kitchen,
Harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your own mother culture,
Maintaining sourdough culture and using leftover mother,
Mixing, autolysing, folding, and scaling,
Pre-shaping and shaping dough,
Scoring and baking your hand built sourdough loaves in your home oven, and
Learning to control variables such as temperature and hydration to develop strategies to incorporate sourdough bread baking into YOUR schedule, so it can become a sustainable part of your cooking routine.
