Home-brewed gingerberry Kombucha

I surprised a friend the other day after offering him a glass of homemade Kombucha. "Kom...what?" he stuttered, adding that he didn't realize I was the "make your own food kinda gal." I explained that Kombucha, while not studied by the USFDA, has been around thousands of years and that before refrigeration, our ancestors survived on cultured and fermented foods. There are many people who believe that our bodies need these living foods, filled with cultures and bacteria and organisms, to properly digest our food, absorb nutrients and otherwise be healthy. My mom made and drank Kombucha over a decade ago when she cured herself of adult onset asthma.

When she reminded me of it about a year ago, I started buying it at the store. GT's Synergy Kombucha has a story it from the founder that credits the Kombucha with saving his mother from breast cancer and I loved the gingerberry flavor, with ginger and blueberry juices, but it cost $3.50 a bottle. Someone I knew who was making their own gave me a Kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) and I started making gingerberry Kombucha, which is what I offered my friend. He was surprised at first, not used to a fizzy, fermented tea drink but he liked it. He drank it down saying "wow" the whole time. Then he asked how to make it.

Making Kombucha is so easy. I make a one gallon batch each week, yielding 12-16 servings that would cost at least $50 at the store and it costs me about $6. I'm making it for myself and my mom and we both drink a glass every day. I make gingerberry flavor just like Synergy but you can drink it plain or add any fruit juice you want to it when you drink it. If you've never tried it, try the Synergy brand and see if you do. Then, find someone who makes it and get yourself a SCOBY. Every batch yields a new one.

Here's how to do it:
You'll need a one-gallon jar, four mason jars with lids, a fine mesh strainer that fits into a glass, a glass, a spoon and a chopper/food processor.

You'll also need a Kombucha SCOBY, a gallon of filtered water, ten black tea bags (no flavors), one cup of sugar and a glass of Kombucha as the "starter."

The first time, you'll wash the jars, rinse in very hot water and dry. You'll put the Kombucha SCOBY in the gallon jar with the starter. Since you haven't made any yet, will need to add a bottle of GT's organic raw Kombucha to use as starter.

Then, boil the gallon of water in a large pot. Take it off the heat and add ten black tea bags and one cup of sugar and stir. Let it cool to room temperature. When the tea is room temperature, put the jar in the sink and cover the opening with the mesh strainer. Pour the tea in and the strainer will catch the tea bags. Cover the jar with a lint-free towel, securing with a large rubber band and put it in a warm, dark place.

In 7-10 days, take the cloth of of the Kombucha jar and push the SCOBY down with a regular spoon to get a spoonful of Kombucha. Taste it to make sure it is tart. It will smell and taste like a bit like apple cider vinegar. If you're ready to bottle, make another pot of tea like above.

When the tea is cool, put one mason jar in the sink. Get the mouth of the Kombucha jar close to the jar and pour, filling it with Kombucha. Do that with the other three and that should leave you with the Kombucha SCOBY and starter in the large jar.

(Note that with every batch, your SCOBY will grow a new layer that can be peeled off and given to a friend with very clean hands and put into a Ziploc freezer bag with some Kombucha. Or you can just leave it but it will ferment more quickly.)

Then pour the new batch of tea into the Kombucha jar, cover with the linen and rubber band and put it in its dark cupboard for another week. Easy! If I'm going out of town and won't be able to bottle the Kombucha, I put the jar in the refrigerator to slow down the fermentation. You can also, instead of making a new batch, store the SCOBY and the remaining Kombucha in a large Ziploc bag in the refrigerator for several weeks.

OPTIONAL: Once you've bottled the Kombucha, you can add fruit juice. I add blueberry ginger because it was my favorite GT Dave's flavor. To do it, I defrost 3 cups of frozen blueberries the night before. Then I chop them in the food processor, put them in a strainer over a tall glass and press the juice out with the slotted spoon. I peel a 2-3 inch piece of fresh ginger root, cut it into chunks and chop in the food processor. I put the ginger into the blueberry juice and let it sit for a few hours (usually while the tea is cooling). Then strain the ginger and press the juice out so you're left with ginger-infused blueberry juice. Pour a small amount of it into each mason jar of Kombucha.

The most important thing to remember is that the Kombucha SCOBY is a living culture and must be treated in a sanitary way. Always wash your hands and use clean utensils and jars. Also, Kombucha has a reaction with metal and will turn it black so it should only be stored in glass. And don't forget that the only thing that should ever be in your Kombucha brewing jar is black tea, Kombucha and the SCOBY. The fruit juice is only added in the bottling. I recommend drinking Kombucha on a empty stomach rather than right after a meal. It does have a small amount of caffeine in it (from the tea) and is slightly alcoholic so it makes your tummy buzz when you drink it. Enjoy and let me know if you notice any health benefits!

Lasagna garden

I've decided to plant a garden. I've lived in this apartment almost nine months, I'm not sure why it's taken me so long. My neighbor said the soil in our small patch of yard was shit but then I remembered it doesn't matter. Last year, I helped a friend of mine create a lasagna garden in her backyard. The idea is simple: You put layers of wet newspaper on top of any ground surface - grass, weeds, rocks, it doesn't matter - and layer peat moss and any organic material you can find like compost, manure, clippings, etc. Then you plant your garden! My mom always says that vegetables are the easiest plants to grow. People always complaining that they kill plants in their house don't have to worry. As long as you have light and water, veggies will grow. Fruits too!


The best thing about this method, other than the obvious ease of it, is that you leave the soil undisturbed. That means earthworms and other bugs that till the soil will find their way into your garden and keep it growing. I remember reading an article about a guy who turns lawns into food gardens. In the article, his company was rototilling this front yard and broke their machine on the grass roots and rocks. It was totally silly, renting that expensive machine and going through all that work, and killing all the sweet little earthworms! All you have to do is layer on top. The lack of light kills grass roots and anything else much easier than any chemicals or forceful extraction, the newspaper eventually gets eaten by worms and dissolves into the earth.

I've been mulling over this idea for some time. I can't see the garden from my apartment so it's easy to forget that there is a patch of land down there. Then yesterday, walking around, I saw that someone in San Francisco was growing vegetables in pots on the sidewalk! It really is that easy and I have no excuses. Here's how to do it.


Without getting into this too much, I believe that water and food are going to become serious battle grounds as people start to realize that mass production of food has driven it into very unhealthy directions. Big agribusiness is not likely to give up huge profits to make our food healthier and treat the earth better but we DO have control over our food - we can all plant vegetables. Power to the people!

Expanding food

I just got back from four days with the nephews and have some blogging to catch up on. My first day there we climbed to the top of Multnomah Falls on the Columbia River. Here's me in front of the falls with my youngest nephew.


It was one of a series of weekly "challenges" my brother, his wife and her family are doing as part of a group diet. At the end of the climb, they did a weigh in. The winner of the weekly weight in wins the pot of money they all put in. I thought it was very inspiring, a great way to support each other.

At home, their refrigerator was stocked with fruits and vegetables. We packed lunches every day to avoid eating fatty food out. My sister-in-law said, "it's not so much that we eat bad food, it's that we eat too much." Americans have long enjoyed a varied bounty of inexpensive food. When I got back from India ten years ago and made a trip to the grocery store, I was floored by the enormous fruits and vegetables in the store. After two months in another country looking at normal-sized produce, these genetically-modified, chemically-enhanced monstrosities seemed cartoon-like, blown way out of proportion.

I felt for my brother and his wife. What an uphill battle they're fighting. Everything about our culture encourages people to eat more. I've done a couple of cleanses/fasts and learned that you can't watch television on one. Every few minutes there's a commercial for fast food. I don't even notice them normally but on a diet, juicy burgers dripping with cheese and bacon suddenly become the most delicious-looking thing I've ever seen.

On the plane back to LA, there was an column in Southwest's Spirit Magazine called The Numbers. "The bagel has grown three inches since 1987" was the headline. I thought something was amiss! Our food has been expanding at such a steady rate that we hardly notice we're suddenly eating three times as much. "But I only ate one!" Up from 140 calories, the new bagel has 350. The muffin has increased from 1.5 oz to 4 oz since 1987. The cookie has grown 2 inches in diameter from 1.5 to 3.5. The 2.4 oz portion of French fries is now 6.9 oz (and has 8g of trans-fats.)

One of our picnics included smallish turkey sandwiches with tomato and sprouts, carrots and hummous, a single serving each of a potato salad with olive oil and orzo rice salad to share, a green salad and almonds. My brother felt like he ate a lot, "I just kept eating and eating but I didn't feel full," he said. I told him that the body can function without ever feeling full and in fact the feeling indicates that we've eaten too much. Because of the giant portions we're served in restaurants these days, we have come to believe we shouldn't stop eating until it hurts.

My sister-in-law lost eight pounds that week but didn't win the pool. Someone else lost twelve. Keep up the good work y'all!

Fat on the inside

When it comes to being fit, experts say there is no short-cut. "If you just want to look thin, then maybe dieting is enough," Bell said. "But if you want to actually be healthy, then exercise has to be an important component of your lifestyle."

So said an article in the LA Times last weekend in regards to a new study on "internal fat." The study found that thin people who don't exercise or eat well could be storing fat around their organs INSIDE their body, making them more vulnerable to diabetes and heart disease than their heavier but more active counterparts.

I sometimes take this yoga class from Bryan Kest who is just fantastic in his unorthodox way of leading a class. He makes light of the Indian names and false reverence often found in less compelling yoga classes. "This is called bending over and holding one leg up," he'll say in a class before he goes on to say "who cares how you look in a bathing suit if you can't bend over and pick up your kids. What could be more important than bending over?"

In this uber-superficial city/country/world people are so focused on what they look like and what other people look like. It's easy to look at an obese person and say, wow, I must be really healthy compared to them but this new study says "thin fat" people may as well be obese. Health is not measured on the outside.

Here's the good news. Exercise makes you feel good. It's meant to. It's like a good friend of mine always says "the body wants to be in shape." You don't have to do much, just give it a little encouragement. Exercise shouldn't be torture, it should be fun. And when you feel good, you'll look good. My very first yoga teacher used to have us look in the mirror after class so we could see how much better we looked. Bright eyes, worry lines relaxed, clear skin.

When I was doing fund raising for the YMCA, I remember the administrator saying "if everyone showed up to work out who had a membership, they couldn't all fit in the door." People buy a membership because they think it will motivate them to work out. But if feeling good, being able to move and aging in style doesn't compel a person, no amount of money spent will.

I'm sorry I didn't appreciate you

My dad made me run in high school, track and cross-country. I hated running but it gave me very nicely shaped legs. As a teenager, I never wore a skirt longer than mid-thigh and I didn't wear pants until college. In a bikini, however, I was always self-conscious about my strong frame, thick muscular waist, and round butt. The women in the magazines had long thin limbs, small soft waists and smooth flat bottoms with just a hint of a crease at the leg. I used to describe myself as a white girl with black girl's butt. Or bubble butt. I tried to hide it (years before J-Lo made it famous).

When I left home, I stopped running and didn't run for years and years. I did yoga, took boxing, swam and rode the bicycle. Without the heavy training, I was thinner. A few years ago, I gained a tiny bit of weight at my waist and finally, after all these years, had a soft feminine tummy (is that the weirdest word ever?) But then something funny happened. My butt started to lose its muscular quality and literally began disappearing. I'd since learned that those models were airbrushed teenagers and at 35, I'd finally had come to appreciate my bubble butt! Alas, it was too late. My ass was disappearing and now I wanted it back.

I started running again, about six months ago. Every time I head out, I feel like I'm chasing my ass, into the past, trying to catch it. Wait, don't go! I'm sorry! I think y'all know the moral of this story. Whatever you've got, appreciate it before it's gone.