Connection

“It is amazing how we knit this community together in unimaginable ways”

That was the WhatsApp message from Galia Kleiman in response to the photo I sent her of Sophia Eng and Sebastian Chagoya cooking together in preparation for our Asian Ancestral Weekend event this past weekend. It reminded me that all of us in this ancestral diet community are intricately connected. And, this was a great reminder less than one week after we announced our word for the year – connection. I was proud.

It truly is a small world

How did it come to be that a Weston Price Chapter Leader, health coach, nourishing food educator, and bone broth producer from Mexico City commented on a photo of a Vietnamese-American author, farmer, and nourishing food advocate cooking with our intern from Oaxaca, Mexico at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen in Chestertown, Maryland? 

Well, that’s a great question. It’s a small, small beautiful world and a huge, passionate community of incredible humans working together to nourish one another. Please give me a moment to elaborate – it will become very clear:

Fall of 2018

After months of searching online to find someone to help me arrange an immersive research trip into traditional nixtamalization practices I learned about Galia online when I came across an advertisement for Ferment Oaxaca, a conference she was co-organizing with Raquel Guajardo that included workshop leaders and presenters such as fermentation guru, Sandor Katz and traditional cheesemaker, David Asher. As soon as I saw this conference, I knew I had to meet the person who was organizing it. So, I sent her an email.

Christmas of 2018

The entire Schindler family met Galia’s family in person for the first time the day before Christmas Eve in Mexico City for a nixtamalization workshop we organized at a tortilleria, Cal y Maiz. We spent Christmas together and all of us took a hot air balloon ride over the pyramids over Teotihuacan. Our families bonded so well and it was such a magical experience that we offered for them to come visit us in Maryland. The Schindler family continued on to conduct research in Oaxaca the Galia helped coordinate where we learned more about traditional nixtamalization and the art of making quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese).

April, 2019

Galia took us up on our offer! We brought Galia and her family to Chestertown to present at the Eastern Shore Food Lab while it was still a part of Washington College. The title of her presentation was: Pulque – the ultimate fermented drink. The abstract on the advertisement read: Rediscover a flavorful connection to the advanced culture of ancient Mexico in pulque, the fermented agave beverage that nourished humans since pre-Hispanic times.

It was a fantastic event that embodied everything I was hoping to accomplish when I first created the Eastern Shore Food Lab. It was an event designed for the students, faculty, and staff at Washington College as well as for the larger community of Chestertown and the surrounding area. The ESFL student interns, Shane Brill (the assistant director) and I spent weeks preparing by nixtamalization, grinding, pressing and cooking tortillas; making Quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese), fermenting, cooking and everything else required to cater the event with traditional tacos – talk about project based, hands-on learning! Pulque is hyper local and hyper seasonal; you can only get genuine pulque at the right time of the year very close to where it is produced. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but Galia even organized for fresh pulque to be shipped overnight from a ranch in Mexico where it is made to us so that everyone in attendance could sample some of the real thing after hearing about all of its amazing benefits from her presentation. I am confident it was the first genuine pulque ever consumed in Chestertown, Maryland! After the event our families had a blast exploring the area together including stops at Rolph’s Wharf and Washington D.C.!

September 2021

Galia invited me to teach a workshop at her annual Ferment Oaxaca Conference (yes, the very same conference I first noticed online three years earlier where I learned about Galia). I was so honored! The workshop was on Fermenting Offal.

At the conference, I met Sebastian Chagoya. His mother owns a health food store in Oaxaca which hosted one of the conference workshops that year. Every year Sebastian helps with logistics during the conference. And, since his English was so amazing, we spent a lot of time together. He was a fantastic tour guide and translator. And, his work ethic was amazing. 

May 2022

Christina and I traveled to San Miquel de Allende to teach a cheesemaking workshop and deliver a presentation for a brand new conference Galia had organized with Raquel Guajardo and Hilda Labrada Gore. 

August 2023

Sebastian reached out to inquire about the possibility of interning with us after seeing us post online about our renovations at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen. He was very interested in learning how to cook nourishing foods from scratch and the opportunity to improve his English. 

September 2023

Sebastian arrived at Philadelphia International Airport and began interning with us the next day!

Fall of 2023

I was contacted by Chelsea Green to write a blurb, a short promotional description, for a new book they were publishing titled, The Nourishing Asian Kitchen: Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Health and Healing written by Sophia Eng. The publishers were excited about this book and, after reading the manuscript I was too! It was written from the heart and chock full of great information and recipes. Here is the blurb I wrote:

Finally, an ethnic cookbook that truly celebrates the nourishing qualities of traditional diets! Through The Nourishing Asian Kitchen, Sophia Nguyen Eng empowers the home cook to rely upon ferments, broths, high-quality fats, and even offal to create authentically healthy dishes. This book is exactly what we need to help confront a global foodscape that has been cheapened by the industrial food system to the point that it is making us sick.

October 2023

Christina and I co-presented at the Nourishing Traditions Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. This is the annual Weston Price Foundation Conference that draws approximately 1,500 attendees each year. You can imagine our surprise and delight when Mexico City’s Weston Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Galia Kleiman took the stage right before our presentation to introduce us!

Later at the Chelsea Green Book table in the vendor hall we met Sophia Eng in person for the first time. We had a great conversation and, after meeting her we wanted to share her passion and enthusiasm with our community. So, we invited her to Chestertown and the three of us brainstormed and planned a weekend worth of events to run through the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and the Eastern Shore Food Lab.

December 2023

Sophia’s book launched

January 2024

Sophia and her family traveled from East Tennessee to the Modern Stone Age Kitchen for the Asian Ancestral Eating Weekend that included a special pizza in honor of Sophia Friday night, a Oxtail Pho workshop Saturday morning, a special dinner directly from the pages of her book Saturday night, and tons of preparation, conversation, and book signings in between. It was during preparation for the event that I snapped the picture of Sophia and Sebastian and sent it to Galia.

True Connection

So, why was Galia so excited to see Sophia and Sebastian together in that photo? It is not just because Galia and Sophia also met one another in person at the Nourishing Traditions conference in October. No, much better and more “full circle” than that….

This upcoming September, Sophia will be in Oaxaca leading her own workshop at Galia’s Ferment Oaxaca Conference and Sebastian will be back by then helping with logistics and ensuring the conference runs smoothly! What a small, small world. 

This is just one of so many similar situations that we have been fortunate to experience as a part of this incredible community. And, our experiences are most certainly a small representative sample of how many are actually occurring all over the world.

Being a professor

One of the many facets I loved about being a professor was that I was expected to conduct research. Research provided me the opportunity to learn new things, meet new people, and be inspired. Being a professor also meant that I had the opportunity to teach, which meant sharing my research with my students which included not just what I learned but also the people I met and all of the inspiration I received from both.

This was such a rewarding part of my life that Christina and I have intentionally structured what we are building here with the Eastern Shore Food Lab and the Modern Stone Age Kitchen to be able to continue this pattern for the larger community in and around Chestertown.

Everything written above is a direct reflection of what this approach can accomplish.

and we can not wait to connect with YOU!!!

Are you ready to connect?

This year’s Ferment Oaxaca Conference is taking place on September 26. It is a powerful, one of a kind experience and I highly recommend attending. It is a great opportunity to learn all different types of fermentation techniques, meet like minded people and do it all in Oaxaca, a colorful, beautiful place with incredible people and some of the most delicious, nourishing, traditional food in the world! Here is a link for more information and tickets: https://www.fermentoaxaca.com/