Maps Fermenting

Dr. Lozares-Lewis graduated from the Sutter Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency program with an area of concentration in HIV in 2011.  We are fortunate that she continues to this day to serve as one of the providers/mentors in the HIV track through Santa Rosa Community Health. In her distant past, Ele worked at several cafes, delis, and restaurants while starting a catering and tart business in San Francisco in the early 1990s. As running a business requires some semblance of financial expertise and restraint, this business was not long for this world and things went a bit south before they got better. She decided that maybe being a street urchin was not a sustainable career and that maybe, just maybe going back to school would be a good thing. Somehow, that led to med school, but that’s another story.

Ele grew up in a Filipino-Japanese household in an area (Castro Valley) and time (1970s) when Asian food was often maligned as stinky and weird. Dried fish, dried squid, “stinky” daikon, miso, kimchi, and parts of animals that many people would not eat were all part of her childhood kitchen memories—and often her school lunches. As a teen, Ele first gravitated to euro-centric techniques of cooking prior to returning to what her dad used to cook, influenced by his mother and aunts before him and shaped by being stationed in Japan when he was in the Navy. This amalgam of cultures peppered with the effect that living through sparse times of war and immigration created her family’s culture of always having way too much food—and really good food.

At this MAPS workshop, we will practice the ancient culinary art of fermentation by making not-so-traditional Kkakdugi (kimchi Korean radishes) including a vegan version for those so inclined.  

Location:  We will meet at the private home of Dr. Lozares-Lewis in Santa Rosa, address to be shared with attendees when registered.

Space limited to  ~15 people, so reserve your spot now!