This blog started as an act of reluctant translation.
I am an analog person: kitchens, radio consoles, face-to-face organizing. Digital content was not my native language, and the earliest version of this project shows exactly what it looks like when someone who learned to communicate elbow-deep in a commercial kitchen tries to figure out how platforms work by just... doing it anyway.
What followed was an education in the gap between good content and visible content. A fermentation guide that nobody saw for weeks. A satirical piece about what institutions extract from the people they claim to serve. A video game review about capitalism that required players to win through exploitation before it would let them feel bad about it. Post after post, tagged carefully, written honestly, received in silence.
Then one person liked the fermentation video. I left them a comment. They replied, saved the post for their husband, and followed the blog.
That two-message thread taught me more about authentic engagement than anything else this project produced. You cannot shortcut the relationship. You have to show up and talk to people like a person.
That lesson is the foundation of everything being built next.
Where This Is Going
The Broccoli Sprouts Local Economy Platform (release date TBA) is a mobile-first member portal for small business owners, makers, and cooperative members in Transylvania County, NC. Here is what it is being built to do.
The Document Library puts NC-specific legal and operational templates in the hands of people who need them: LLC formation checklists, worker cooperative bylaws, contractor agreements, HR essentials. The kind of paperwork that costs hundreds of dollars an hour when a lawyer drafts it from scratch.
The Tax Prep Center pre-populates quarterly worksheets and expense trackers from your own business profile data. It does not file your taxes. It makes sure filing is never a crisis.
The Compliance Calendar sends automated reminders for the deadlines that quietly end small businesses when missed: NC annual reports, quarterly estimated tax payments, 1099-NEC thresholds, business license renewals. First-time business owners miss these not because they are careless but because nobody told them the dates existed.
The Podcast is long-form interviews with local entrepreneurs and cooperative members, the people building things in this county who are willing to say publicly how it actually works. The kind of conversation that used to happen over a back fence, recorded and made searchable.
The Sprout Score Dashboard tracks your business formation journey through the platform's botanical framework: Seed, Sprout, Growing, Rooted. Progress needs to be visible to feel real.
The Template Marketplace lets cooperative members and local professionals contribute specialized templates sold through the platform. Contributors keep 85% of each sale. Value stays with the people who generate it.
New members receive a physical Business in a Box kit: printed templates, a compliance checklist customized to their business type, and a welcome letter with local resources. For someone starting a business for the first time, something you can hold in your hands matters.
You can see the original content and code for yourself, including how this whole thing sprouted, over at CodePen.
The audience built here, however small, is the beginning of the trust infrastructure a cooperative economy requires. One mutual who saves your fermentation guide for her husband is a community member. That is the whole model.
Stay tuned for updates on the new website and what comes next.
Fermented vegetables aren't just for hippies. Or SE Asian-Fusion, although Kim-Chi is widely known as the best kind of fermented cabbage. Don't argue. Did you know your body mass is a crazy-large percentage of just bacteria? Like, a full-fraction of yourself is actually other things, living in colonies, eating sugars, utilizing hydrolysis like they own your shit. They kind of do, actually, since the biggest beneficiary of these creepily-helpful friends you never knew were inside of you is your colon. Yup. Gut health (and being a good pooper) isn't just about what you eat, it's what's eating what you eat, and all the chemical reactions they cause (called enzymes) in addition to the physical labor of digestion and processing of sugars.
There are certain bacteria that are good for certain things, so, yeah, please wash your hands after using the bathroom and before you eat, because any bacteria mostly like the same thing, remembered in the acronym FAT TOM (more below). This means that some kinds of bacteria (like E. Coli) should live in your gut and only in your gut because it has a very specific job to do and the right ecosystem to do it. But when E. Coli escapes your butt or someone else's butt (like in the pooper), and somehow makes it to your mouth and then stomach (how did that happen?? Did you wash your hands??
WASH YOUR HANDS! DO IT! Warm water + soap + sing the happy birthday song twice, you animal), it will definitely make you very sick.
Like a nascar driver in charge of the carpool…. Nobody is denying Earnhardt got skills, but do you want that guy doing flips in your minivan with a bunch of kids? That's what I am talking about, right bacteria, wrong place and time for the job needing done.
The RIGHT kind of bacteria for your mouth and tum-tum lives, kind of everywhere… our skin, dirt, water, the surface of fruit, on molecules we breathe in, and it occurs naturally in human biomes and other animals. Go figure, it's like nature intended us to be a part of the natural ecosystem, and we're all connected by something. The bacteria in question is the L. Bacillus acidophilus kind. Bacillus means it's rod-shaped (get a microscope) and acidophilus means it's the kind that does well in acid. As in stomach acid. The 'L' stands for Lacto, meaning milk, because we get the first strains of Lactobacillus introduced to our body from our mother's milk. Aww. So, how do we get the L. Bacillus to work for us, in a recipe? FAT TOM will tell you how, but the first thing you need to do before you get started is to WASH YOUR HANDS.
Food - all bacteria love sugars, but not all food we see has a lot of sugar naturally occuring. So what is a bacteria to do? Convert starches and aminos into sugars, the same way we do, by breaking down food stuff. We're using 1 whole red cabbage with the outer leaves peeled away and the core taken out, 1 sweet onion, a whole head of peeled garlic (about 8-10 cloves), 1 pound of peeled ginger, and I decided to throw in 6 peeled purple turnips. Feel free to experiment, but you'll notice the list is small, and it's like that for a reason.
Acid - All bacteria, like us, take a certain pH level to thrive. Different bacteria like different kinds of pH, and we're going to be creating a love-shack for the L. Bacillus by creating the right pH balance with our ingredient choices, and the correct amount of salt (more later about this).
Temperature - just about body temp, but room temp is fine too, the process will just go slower. Wait what? What process? This is cooking. No, it's fermenting, and it takes time, so do it like you ferment it. The warmer the environment the faster the fermentation process, so ambient temperature control also controls the…
Time - the amount of time it takes for a colony of the preferred bacteria to form and concentrate in high enough numbers to be considered "food" instead of just "coleslaw, but…wrong." Our recipe (depending on temperature and other factors) should take about a week or so to get fully "there".
Oxygen - even though Lacto-fermentation is an anaerobic process (it happens without the presence of oxygen), we still need some fresh air to get the little buggers to start doing stuff. This is why we stir - WITH TONGS. Also, introducing some oxygen to the process is going to be kind of a control to the process, meaning we can slow down or speed up how fast the whole thing goes with the amount of stirring and exposure to oxygen we create. What's the right amount? We'll find out. Life is lifeing, ya know? Don't worry too much, it's just cabbage at the end of the day, and the bacteria can hear your stress-vibes.
Moisture - Yes, we all need moistness. The word, the concept, the … mouthfeel. It's just great, good, necessary stuff. There is some moistness in the vegetables we're colonizing, but like good colonizers we gotta colonize efficiently and thoroughly, because what's the point if you don't decimate an indigenous population of native, unhelpful bacteria that was already living and thriving on that cabbage? What if it's a yeast, like Candida? We can't use that for our selfish nutritional needs, so get away with it. Go, Bacillus, and do our bidding, but remember to pay taxes. Adding the correct amount of moistness (in the form of filtered water) is going to create a bath for our lovely satellite sovereigns to take over the veggie salad. This happens because our guy, L. Bacillus, is anaerobic, remember, meaning operates without oxygen. A lot of other things that are harmful for us to eat, like molds and other kinds of bacteria are aerobic, meaning they need oxygen to live and thrive, which they must not. So drown them.
So, that's 'ol FAT TOM, the first thing I ever learned in culinary school, because WASH YOUR FREAKIN HANDS!
Now it's time to chop.
Low-sugar, high-moisture vegetables.
I used cabbage (the most traditional and ubiquitous fermented vegetable across the world) and turnips, but I also have had success in the past with other members of the Brassicasae family, like broccoli, cauliflower, and mustard (sometimes kale, depending on the size of the leaf. You need a lot of moisture and crunch for this to work!). I also sometimes use radishes, carrots, but NEVER potatoes or anything starchier than the aforementioned carrot…too much sugar! You will have boozy cabbage juice/vinegar before you know it. What about parsnips? I mean… what about parsnips? Go for it. LMK.
High-sugar, high-moisture vegetables.
Onions and Garlic are an absolute must for most fermented vegetables, especially if you still want to eat the fermented product while it's still alive and all pro-biotic (that's redundant). German sauerkraut is fermented at one point and famously has no onions or garlic in it, but it is not usually probiotic when you do eat it because the cabbage's sugars have been all eaten up by the bacteria, and when there's nothing left to eat the poor little guys starve to death. When that happens they stop producing ethanol (the bubbly gas, product of fermentation, i.e alcohol) and just like wine that got left open last night, it goes sour. So, beyond being a food source for our bacterial buddies, onions and garlic happen to be a favorite food source, more so than other vegetables in this mixture, so this means they will eat them first, and eat the cabbage and turnips last, and while this is happening they are multiplying like family diners at a vegas buffet with free childcare, and if you have ever waited in line for a plate in such a scenario (don't ask), then you will know that the most prolific breeders win the buffet. I mean fermentation. Same thing. Point is, any other rando bacteria hanging around, maybe just on a solo-trip on their way back from the bathroom, will have less of a chance to sidle up and join the party, ruining your batch of fermented veg (and your stomach/butthole, if it's E.Coli. Please, for f***'s sake, wash your hands. Just do it. Please?)
*pro tip, if you're ever at a bar and the bartender pours you the last of a bottle of wine, politely put on your best Karen-will-call-the-manager face and gently ask him (because it's always a him in this case, ladies know) to pour that shit out and open a fresh bottle just for you because science. That wine, even if the dude only opened the bottle an hour ago, has been turned up and down and all around so many times that it is well-oxygenated by this point and tastes absolutely nothing like it should. Trust me, thank me later. Or don't.
Anyway… I used onions, sliced into rings, because I think they're prettier that way. I was lazy, and put the peeled garlic and ginger into a blender, and made it a puree instead of chopping it into a mince or slicing them into little slices. Works either way! By all means, practice your knife skills. 1 cabbage, take off the outer leaves, remove stem/core, then cut the cabbage into wedges or chunks, nothing too fancy. I peeled the turnips because…no reason, I just wanted to make a really purple vegetable stock with them and the cabbage scraps. Then I cut the turnips into 1 inch-ish cubes… this part is important, because the size of the cabbage and turnip chunks to be about the same according to surface area, which will determine the amount of time it will take to ferment everything (and also bite-size is way easier to manage). But, if you were a neolithic farmer who just discovered salt preservation, chances are you'd just throw everything whole into a vessel, and cover it with salt you just traded your daughter for. Who cares, by next winter you'll probably have another girl-child and free fermented vegetables. Science.
Now do some science.
Kurt Vonnegut said science is magic made into reality. It's cool to think of it like that, but the only people who think of food as magic are people who have never made food, like our friend the daughter-selling slaver I mean farmer from the Neolithic era. There is a process, and it's not exact, but that doesn't mean it's not based on science, it's just largely based on something that is very contextual, and that's context.
We've already talked about some things that can shape the context of your process: which vegetables you choose to ferment, how big or small you want to cut them, how warm or cold it is in your house and OH GOD FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET INFANT JESUS WASH YOUR HANDS!!!!!!! Do everything you can to NOT introduce other bacteria into the mix. OK but science is knowledgeable-ish, right? How do we know we're not doing the thing we're not supposed to without a microscope? Well, my friend, it is now absolutely clear to me you have never cooked anything ever without making yourself or someone else sick because the SUPER obvious answer to that is to … yep, wash your hands first and often, number 1.
Also, ONLY use clean equipment, surfaces, and ingredients (you attain that state of cleanliness by washing these things also, before, during, and after all cooking processes but especially this one). You can wash your vegetables by giving them a rinse with cool water, then letting them sit in a mild bath of cool water with a lower pH than tap water. Achieve that by throwing in a capful of white vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice into the water the vegetables bathe in. Don't worry about being surgery-sterile (overboard, much?), but I would recommend using the sanitize setting on your dishwasher with your knives and mixing bowls and other stuffs, and if you don't have a dishwasher then just wash with warm water and soap as usual, then rinse with water that is as absolutely as hot as you can stand it, then letting all your things air-dry before using. Air-dry is important, because towels are breeding grounds for all kinds of unhelpful bacteria and germs, and bacteria cannot live on non-porous surfaces with no food, incubation, while being exposed to too much oxygen, and rapidly shrinking amounts of moisture. While they might not thrive and colonize to breed (until they find what they want!) bacterial cultures could still get smeared on from the towel and dormantly rest there. You know that smell, when it's time to wash a kitchen towel? That's some ucky bacteria making that smell. Does your dish sponge smell like that? Sanitize it in your dishwasher, or throw it away. Right now. Then wash your hands. Maybe twice.
OK, we did all that, but Carrie, I don't understand. My fingies are so clean, and so is my kitchen now (you're welcome), and the veggies look like just normal veggies. Did you forget to tell us where to buy the L. Bacillus Acidophilus? Um, did you forget to tell me that you are an artesanal champagne brewer, and you only buy fermentable bacteria online, or from highly-curated and overhyped gourmet markets? Shipped to you in too much earth-killing insulated packaging like a Whole Foods SCOBY? Get a grip.
Sorry, that was a little mean. But the truth is (imagine me doing a Yoda-voice) Inside and all around you, L. Bacillus is.
Yeah, it's true! Starting when you were a wee babe, you got it from your mother's milk, if you were lucky enough to be breastfed, like my older brother. If you're the middle child of a working-class poor family like me, then you might not have gotten it from breast milk but you got it from somewhere. It's the reason your parents would watch you eating dirt off the floor and just shrug while looking at each other and saying "eh, it's good bacteria. Right?" and then go on drinking Zima while smoking inside of a Dunkn' Donuts and agreeing or disagreeing with whatever Regan was doing at the time, depending on their skin color and income bracket. So, yeah, trust me, L. Bacillus will get there. You put out all the tasty little thirst-traps it loves, the garlic and onions and cabbage, and you made a lovely, comfy, clean home for it to come occupy by genociding all the wild yeasts and bacteria that pre-existed before your capitalistic greed took over (history will remember), first with a rinse in the tub of acidic water, and then by throwing salt at the whole mess and massaging it. With your hands. Yes, those hands. The clean ones. Why do you think it was so important to keep washing them? Your hands, armpits, feet, groin, and mouth are where bacteria loves to congregate because of all the moisture and heat and contact with others. Just shut up and think about science. And don't try to massage anything with your groin, that is highly not OK. Your armpits come in contact with lots of stuff, too, you just don't realize it because we're constantly worried about pit-stains and smells and
waaaaaaaiiitt…. Yup, that's how it works. Bacterial transfer, via contact with moisture. Sprinkle enough sea-salt (my preference, as a chef, but honestly if all you have is iodized table salt, chemically it should work) to make a really gritty environment for all your lovely smooth-surfaced vegetables (for about the 2 - 2.5 pounds of vegetables I used in this batch, I put in about a handful of sea salt, or ¼ - ⅓ of a cup. Science.), and then massage it with your bare hands. This is the only time throughout the entire process I want you to actually touch the vegetables and everything with your bare hands, seriously. You, you bacterial host, you unknowing puppet of bioengineering, you cog in the natural ecosystem, you are transferring part of the bacterial body that lives inside of you and on you and around you onto the cabbage and onions and turnip by massaging the salt into it all with your bare hands. In bacterial terms, this is what we call enculturing. Really. And you thought I was joking about the colonizer stuff… I wasn't, only slightly exaggerating. The salt does a few things: it lacerates the vegetables, which make them more susceptible to bacterial transfer. 2nd, through a process called osmosis, it begins what is essentially a fluid transfer between you and the vegetables, a transfer which carries strains of the L. Bacillus through your bloodstream and skin via your sweat/moisture loss because of the salt. Lasty, contrary to what you might think, the salt actually creates an antimicrobial and antibacterial environment, which is why you don't want too much salt.
Too much salt means your L. Bacillus will never thrive, or it will take wayyyyy too long to make your fermented vegetables, because they're so well-preserved with the salt they stay untouched for months and months until all that's left is cabbage in a salt-brine even the donkey doesn't want but sailors out at sea for months at a time really appreciate. However, just like any imprisoned population turned into a colony on behalf of a ruling empire, there's a bit of a caste system among bacteria, and only the strongest survive the transfer. Like the pilgrims on the Mayflower, and whatnot. The L. Bacillus that do survive the transfer are going to be strong, hearty, and really happy to find all this super-available food-stuffs ready to go, the onions and garlic - our high-sugar, high moisture items. They already survived the transfer at the current saline level, so it's not actually a problem for them, they're good to go and ready to start a population boom right away. And so they do. After you've thoroughly massaged the inoculated population like you're Queen Isabella convincing a bunch of pirates they're doing God's work by risking their lives to find the New World, you're just gonna leave them to it for a little while - about a half hour should be good, uncovered is fine. After a half hour, the vegetables should be as wilted as a conquered land. Yeesh, where was my head for this whole entry?
Containing the carnage,and processing what you've set in motion.
Um, ok, I guess we're just going to ride this out until it's done.
So, the first-contact colonizers were strong and began populating the cabbage, according to God's plan. But the first generation that was born on the new terrain…well, they're a different story. Genetic traits pass on generation to generation in bacteria, just like us, but everyone is fragile when young. Some kids need time, you know? Also, a bacterial generation is when cells divide, about every thirty minutes. So by the time we come back to the wilted veg, the next generation should be about ready to start breeding and multiplying as well, but because we don't have the same fitness test as the parent generation did (transfer through saline), we're going to make it easier on them by containing the whole environment and also reducing some stressors - reducing saline and oxygen levels mainly - by adding some fresh water, essential for all life. Reducing saline makes it easier on them to do their thing, and reducing the oxygen levels creates a non-competitive environment for them to multiply without pesky insurgences of whatever native microbes are still there.
So, this time using a spoon, preferably stainless steel or wood, scoop your veggies and juice (technically a brine) into a large glass seal-able container or several smaller containers. Distribute everything evenly, packing down if you have to, then pour enough cool, filtered water into your vessel(s) to cover the vegetables by about a half inch. If it floats to the top then you can find a way to weigh it down…sometimes I use a glass disk or a small plate if it fits inside the vessel you chose. Other times I think ahead and save back a couple whole leaves of the cabbage, and kind of layer it all on top like I am tucking my babies in…think of putting the top crust of a pie over the filling. Gentle, but secure. And that's it!
Put a lid on it so flies and stuff can't get in , but not so tightly that it gets sealed off from gas-exchange (or else you'll have an explosion later as the bacteria burps methane and it has nowhere to go. Don't worry about the anaerobic nature of it all… the gases produced by the fermentation process actually very lightly settle over the top surface of water/brine, creating a gaseous seal instead of a vacuum (physical seal) against O2 exchange like canning does. What you can do is lightly screw on the lid, or cover the crock with its cover, and then cover that with a clean tea-towel to prevent any dust or bug settling on the soon-to-be-delicious smelling cauldron of pre-probiotics. Within 6 hours you'll begin to smell the wafting scent of garlic and onion as the bacteria go absolutely nuts, eating that food source and farting out similar-smelling farts for days. It will only get stronger for 72 hours, then suddenly the rampant garlic and onion smell will dissipate, to be replaced by the smell of… something vaguely food-like.
Oh, it's food now, of course, go ahead and taste it and you'll see what I mean! Use a fork/utensil, not your fingies, even if they are clean, cause it's just too risky at this point. But if you do taste it, you'll find that the brine has changed from a bath made from the salty tears of colonized cabbage raw-dogged by your fists to a bubbly, fermenty, soupy-flavor that is already nuanced and healthy tasting. Go figure. Science. Don't forget FAT TOM, the temperature of the room will affect the time it takes to get to this and all other stages of fermentation. This stage means that the bacteria have eaten up all the high-sugar veg that's available, and now like a bunch of millennials who are inheriting a world they didn't build based on values that never considered their best interest as individuals in a global economy, the newer generations are just going to take what they can get and try and turn the cabbage and turnips into a tech-boom. And so they do.
It would take them FOREVER to "decompose", or collectively digest/process the sugar in the cabbage and turnips to the same point of used-up as their parents did with the garlic and onion, but we actually don't really want them to. Too long would mean soggy cabbage, and some weird-texture turnips that kind of dissolve when you eat them. I like to crunch on everything, and in my mind according to this process it should take about 7 days minimum at room temperature, stirring once a day maximum with tongs or a spoon, to aerate, and tasting as you go to gauge how things are (it really will move from salty cabbage water to something that tastes like a veggie broth and a jar of pickles burped a bubbly baby together). Then after that, have a taste test and choose your own adventure. You can:
Decide it's ready because it tastes good and feels like food in your mouth, and when you stir the mixture you see bubbles appear - one of the surest signs it's ready, and actively alive. Go ahead and move it to the fridge to slow down all the processes. It's ready to eat at any time after this, and your LIVE probiotic (redundant word usage, marketing ploy) fermented vegetables will stay sedated but alive for weeks and weeks in the fridge. You don't HAVE to refrigerate this mixture, by any means, especially if you loooovee things to be nice and soft and want to have a more homogenous texture at the end of it all. Sometimes when I make fermented hot sauce I go through this whole process never refrigerating anything, and the flavor only gets better.
Decide it's still too salty and "watery" tasting. In this case, you might have added too much salt. Give it more time, but if you need it to be ready soon, you can help things along. Chop up another head of garlic and maybe half an onion this time, and put those in there with some more water. It's ok if there is way more water than you need, there's nothing wrong with some extra probiotic brine to mix into your gut-cleansing morning health shots. With the fresh water and added sugar, let it all sit for another 48 hours, and then keep a close eye on it because chances are it really was the salt level that was holding it back, and once you hit the right saline level and pH it will take off. Taste every day (using a utensil, not your fingies - even if they're clean), and refer to option A.
Woah, did you sniff that? That faintly rotten, composty-vinegar smell is not good. You know the one. That is the smell of a rogue mold spore, probably because you used your grandma's heirloom wooden spoon you refuse to use soap on to stir the mix instead of germaphobic stainless steel. Or it might have been carried in the air by a rotten lemon hiding on the bottom of your curated, perfectly arranged bowl of exotic citrus you keep on the counter to prove how vibrant of a person you are in background-bragging oriented selfies about alkalization. Don't be an influencer. Sigh. Curse. Grieve. Fret. Whatever, just feel your feelings about it. And then, sadly, you gotta do something with this accident. Your options are:
Abort. Down the drain, garbage, toilet, whatever. Chef's choice. Try again, because practice makes perfect.
Salvage. Is there any salvage left? Up to you, and how dearly you'd miss that cabbage. Mold famously is parallel to bacteria in human evolution and cuisine - it has its uses in medicines and exotic cheeses that science claims credit for but was really an accident of nature, just like this. You won't die, probably. But if you're starving and determined not to "waste" your ingredients, put everything into a big stew pot and boil it with lentils like a real hippie. There you go. Done. Add curry and tahini to taste, and put some thai chilis in there too, just to prove to people that you made it taste like that on purpose. If you are immunocompromised or have other issues with mold, NEVER take this option. Choose violence, because you are wrathful and vengeful, so abort. No amount of boiling will 100% remove the risk of ingesting mold, because our awesome pharmaceutical industry in America has encouraged the evolution of stronger and more resistant…everything. So be it! Then try again, because practice makes perfect.
Pray. That's right. Bestow upon that mix more salt of the earth (or sea) - at least a generous handful, please. Wave your (washed, clean) hands over it, mumble-singing a celestial blessing, praising the strength and vitality of our lil' chosen ones, L. Bacillus, for you are the god of this creation and it would please you, dammit, to see them go forth and multiply upon your holy works. If this is your decision, then god be with you. Cast your spell, and then 24 hours later put it in the fridge or throw it out no matter what. If it's working, it will work in the fridge just as well. You're never going to fully kill the mold, is the thing, but you can slow it down enough to give the bacteria a fighting chance to actually ferment something, and if they do get that chance it could take up to 10 days or 2 weeks in the fridge to notice. Before then, you're just treating yourself to cold, salty, halfway fermented cabbage. The mold is there, so if/when you do get a fermented product it's "shelf-life" in the refrigerator is much much shorter than a healthy batch.
If you are immunocompromised or have other issues with mold, NEVER take this option. Choose violence, because you are wrathful and vengeful. Better to abort. So be it! Try again, because practice makes perfect.
Reposting this one because it deserved better than zero. New to the blog? This is what we do here: real food science, no subscription box required. Your gut bacteria have been waiting.
Your gut bacteria deserve better than Whole Foods. If you tried the recipe, reblog with your jar ... I want to see it!
I Felt Like a Child Being Made to Shoot a Gun: Playing Affective Games and Confronting the Moral Friction of Winning
A Broccoli Sprouts Critical Game Review | Molleindustria's McDonald's Videogame & Oiligarchy
There's a moment in McDonald's Videogame where the creepy background music starts playing and you realize you're already being brainwashed. Or, more accurately, your subconsciously embedded instructions are being reactivated. Internally lying that you don't like the catchy jingle is the first moral compromise with yourself you're forced to confront. It only gets worse from there.
I played two of Molleindustria's free browser games this week, McDonald's Videogame and Oiligarchy, and I need to talk about what it feels like when a game makes you win by being evil, and then punishes you for being good at it.
What Are Affective Games, and Why Do They Hit Different?
Affective games are designed to make you feel things on purpose. Not the "I'm having fun building a house" feeling of The Sims, or the zen observation of watching a city grow. These games use what game designer Paolo Pedercini calls procedural rhetoric. The mechanics are the argument. The game doesn't tell you corporations are exploitative. It makes you do the exploiting, and then watches you squirm.
The difference between affective games and something like The Sims is the difference between obvious, intentional critique and understated psychological conditioning. The Sims quietly teaches you to be a passive consumer. McDonald's Videogame hands you the supply chain and says: here, optimize this nightmare yourself.
Playing God, Losing Your Soul
Both games give you a "God's eye view," but here, having God's perspective means having God's ego and being expected to wield God's wrathful vengeance, or you lose.
As a McDonald's executive, I found myself treating workers and animals as interchangeable resources rather than humans. In Oiligarchy, viewing the world as extractable zones mirrors exactly how fossil fuel companies must conceptualize the planet to operate successfully.
The games don't obscure reality. They reveal how dehumanizing the viewpoint required by these industries, and their customer base, must be in order to create a profitable margin.
Playing "successfully" rewired psychology in my brain I thought I had matured out of. Abstraction was favored over logical thinking. Numb reactivity and greed replaced linear common sense.
I felt like a child being made to shoot a gun, and I think that is the point.
The Punishment for Not Being Evil Enough
In Oiligarchy, the first time I played, I delayed as long as I could to interfere in the Middle East and drill in Alaska. I tapped Texas wells almost dry by 1980 and even drilled in Nigeria, hoping I could avoid a disaster. Then, without my asking or ordering the action, the Nigerian government protected their financial interests by assassinating dissenting members of the Oboni tribe. Meep.
In McDonald's Videogame, maximizing profit through seemingly "smart" agricultural choices led to environmental devastation and social upheaval every single time. The more efficiently you play within the system's rules, the faster everything collapses.
This design intentionally traps commonly understood concepts of morality, science, and nutrition under the player's inherent goal to win. The contradictory mind-switches you have to make to get there, ignoring the actual mechanical connection between actions and consequences, is the whole game. You're not optimizing a system. You're exercising and strengthening your tolerance to moral friction. That's what corporate success actually is, and these games make you feel it in your body.
What These Games Include (and What They Leave Out)
These games curate their procedures according to the supply chain. From the ground up, literally. Conquer and spend. Money makes the world go round; you gotta spend money to make money.
The tutorials were helpful, because without them I might have spent the whole game raising happy cows in South America and bankrupting myself every time, blissfully unaware that the claws don't take the cow into the skies. (They definitely do not take the cow into the skies.)
McDonald's Videogame focuses specifically on the cattle and beef industry: displacing jungle for GMO soy crops, labor exploitation, environmental destruction. It pointedly excludes marketing and franchise dynamics. Oiligarchy emphasizes resource extraction and political corruption while simplifying the geological and engineering aspects. This selective modeling allows for deeper exploration of specific systemic issues rather than attempting comprehensive simulation.
Do These Games Make You More Empathetic?
Here's where it got personal.
These virtual experiences increase empathy not through emotional manipulation and psychological coercion into favoring consumerism, but by bluntly helping players understand how systems shape behavior. Pedercini's approach works because the discomfort is procedural. You can't skip it, you can't opt out, you have to do the bad thing to play the game.
I wasn't inspired to take direct action. I don't drive a car or eat McDonald's, and haven't in years. But I was inspired to think harder about the human cost of every "sight unseen" service and product I use for convenience. How often am I blindly living out my life according to reflexes, and at what cost, to whom?
Take calling 911, for example.
A neighbor could smell smoke and call the fire department, not realizing someone was just burning their food. Diverting that resource could cost someone else their life. Or maybe the absent-minded neighbor has PTSD, and being barged in on by three fire marshals after midnight induces terror. Surely the opposite of what a well-intentioned neighbor wanted.
This actually happened to me. I'm the absent-minded neighbor who burnt food, still dealing with the reverberations in my health, my relationships with my neighbors, and the legal status of my tenancy.
The day after playing these simulations, I found myself on the other side of the equation. I saw a three-foot campfire blazing inside a bus shelter in North Portland, ten feet from a building where I used to buy textbooks. I saw a person huddled under the shelter, warming their hands. I felt bad, but I called 911 anyway. By the time the fire department arrived, it was a smouldering ash-stain. One firefighter got out to tell the guy to move along. They looked annoyed.
I wondered what kind of reaction my neighbor had when our own incident occurred. Of course I bit his head off in the hallway, an almost uncontrollable reaction that night due to my C-PTSD. How dumb! How could you think it was a good idea to call 911 because I was burning food!?
The greatest empathy I developed wasn't sadness for exploited ecosystems or outrage at corrupted elections. I already knew those things. It was understanding for the fear and inadequacy instilled in everyone, from national economic systems down to the individual CEO, the local manager, the farmer doing the bidding of a corporation whose president holds their livelihood in soft, unworked hands.
I didn't think I would get there, but I feel bad for how scared my neighbor was now, more than how pissed off I was at him being such a dumbass. Unlike the CEOs in question, he at least utilized his fear hoping it would benefit someone else. He was acting out of ignorance, not being able to see where the smoke was coming from and hoping his decision was for the best.
Do the CEOs tell themselves the same story? Or are they like me, dialing 911 out of fear and concern, but looking at who they're going to push out of the way the entire time, already knowing how much others will suffer before the consequences reach them?
Play These Games Yourself
Both are free, browser-based, and take under an hour:
McDonald's Videogame: mcvideogame.com
Oiligarchy: molleindustria.org/oiligarchy
Fair warning: you will not feel good about winning. That's the point.
Affective games serve as powerful tools for systemic critique, using their mechanics to create meaningful emotional and intellectual experiences that prompt shock, laughter, and then grim reflection. Through careful design and selective modeling, they achieve their goals not by perfect simulation of life, but through applying life through an impeccable simulation of art, revealing truths we hide from ourselves about the systems that shape our world via cute characters doing deadly and awful things to achieve "success."
As a complicit observer, player, and actor on consumerist demands, this is hilarious, depressing, wry, and terrifying all at once.
Have you played either of these games? Did winning make you feel like garbage too? Reblog with your experience, especially if you felt that moment where the game decided you were losing even though you were "winning."
Body copy: Because humans did this for 4,000 years before Whole Foods charged you $12 for it.
One cabbage. Two tablespoons of salt. Your hands. A mason jar. That's the whole ingredient list. No starter kit. No subscription box. No influencer code.
This is sauerkraut — the way your great-grandmother made it, and her great-grandmother before her. Osmosis does the work. You just chop, salt, squeeze, pack, and wait.
Full food science breakdown, history, and troubleshooting: Be Pro-Veggional: A Fermentation Guide
What's fermenting in your kitchen? Reblog with your jar.
Fermented vegetables aren't just for hippies. Or SE Asian-Fusion, although Kim-Chi is widely known as the best kind of fermented cabbage. Don't argue. Did you know your body mass is a crazy-large percentage of just bacteria? Like, a full-fraction of yourself is actually other things, living in colonies, eating sugars, utilizing hydrolysis like they own your shit. They kind of do, actually, since the biggest beneficiary of these creepily-helpful friends you never knew were inside of you is your colon. Yup. Gut health (and being a good pooper) isn't just about what you eat, it's what's eating what you eat, and all the chemical reactions they cause (called enzymes) in addition to the physical labor of digestion and processing of sugars.
There are certain bacteria that are good for certain things, so, yeah, please wash your hands after using the bathroom and before you eat, because any bacteria mostly like the same thing, remembered in the acronym FAT TOM (more below). This means that some kinds of bacteria (like E. Coli) should live in your gut and only in your gut because it has a very specific job to do and the right ecosystem to do it. But when E. Coli escapes your butt or someone else's butt (like in the pooper), and somehow makes it to your mouth and then stomach (how did that happen?? Did you wash your hands??
WASH YOUR HANDS! DO IT! Warm water + soap + sing the happy birthday song twice, you animal), it will definitely make you very sick.
Like a nascar driver in charge of the carpool…. Nobody is denying Earnhardt got skills, but do you want that guy doing flips in your minivan with a bunch of kids? That's what I am talking about, right bacteria, wrong place and time for the job needing done.
The RIGHT kind of bacteria for your mouth and tum-tum lives, kind of everywhere… our skin, dirt, water, the surface of fruit, on molecules we breathe in, and it occurs naturally in human biomes and other animals. Go figure, it's like nature intended us to be a part of the natural ecosystem, and we're all connected by something. The bacteria in question is the L. Bacillus acidophilus kind. Bacillus means it's rod-shaped (get a microscope) and acidophilus means it's the kind that does well in acid. As in stomach acid. The 'L' stands for Lacto, meaning milk, because we get the first strains of Lactobacillus introduced to our body from our mother's milk. Aww. So, how do we get the L. Bacillus to work for us, in a recipe? FAT TOM will tell you how, but the first thing you need to do before you get started is to WASH YOUR HANDS.
Food - all bacteria love sugars, but not all food we see has a lot of sugar naturally occuring. So what is a bacteria to do? Convert starches and aminos into sugars, the same way we do, by breaking down food stuff. We're using 1 whole red cabbage with the outer leaves peeled away and the core taken out, 1 sweet onion, a whole head of peeled garlic (about 8-10 cloves), 1 pound of peeled ginger, and I decided to throw in 6 peeled purple turnips. Feel free to experiment, but you'll notice the list is small, and it's like that for a reason.
Acid - All bacteria, like us, take a certain pH level to thrive. Different bacteria like different kinds of pH, and we're going to be creating a love-shack for the L. Bacillus by creating the right pH balance with our ingredient choices, and the correct amount of salt (more later about this).
Temperature - just about body temp, but room temp is fine too, the process will just go slower. Wait what? What process? This is cooking. No, it's fermenting, and it takes time, so do it like you ferment it. The warmer the environment the faster the fermentation process, so ambient temperature control also controls the…
Time - the amount of time it takes for a colony of the preferred bacteria to form and concentrate in high enough numbers to be considered "food" instead of just "coleslaw, but…wrong." Our recipe (depending on temperature and other factors) should take about a week or so to get fully "there".
Oxygen - even though Lacto-fermentation is an anaerobic process (it happens without the presence of oxygen), we still need some fresh air to get the little buggers to start doing stuff. This is why we stir - WITH TONGS. Also, introducing some oxygen to the process is going to be kind of a control to the process, meaning we can slow down or speed up how fast the whole thing goes with the amount of stirring and exposure to oxygen we create. What's the right amount? We'll find out. Life is lifeing, ya know? Don't worry too much, it's just cabbage at the end of the day, and the bacteria can hear your stress-vibes.
Moisture - Yes, we all need moistness. The word, the concept, the … mouthfeel. It's just great, good, necessary stuff. There is some moistness in the vegetables we're colonizing, but like good colonizers we gotta colonize efficiently and thoroughly, because what's the point if you don't decimate an indigenous population of native, unhelpful bacteria that was already living and thriving on that cabbage? What if it's a yeast, like Candida? We can't use that for our selfish nutritional needs, so get away with it. Go, Bacillus, and do our bidding, but remember to pay taxes. Adding the correct amount of moistness (in the form of filtered water) is going to create a bath for our lovely satellite sovereigns to take over the veggie salad. This happens because our guy, L. Bacillus, is anaerobic, remember, meaning operates without oxygen. A lot of other things that are harmful for us to eat, like molds and other kinds of bacteria are aerobic, meaning they need oxygen to live and thrive, which they must not. So drown them.
So, that's 'ol FAT TOM, the first thing I ever learned in culinary school, because WASH YOUR FREAKIN HANDS!
Now it's time to chop.
Low-sugar, high-moisture vegetables.
I used cabbage (the most traditional and ubiquitous fermented vegetable across the world) and turnips, but I also have had success in the past with other members of the Brassicasae family, like broccoli, cauliflower, and mustard (sometimes kale, depending on the size of the leaf. You need a lot of moisture and crunch for this to work!). I also sometimes use radishes, carrots, but NEVER potatoes or anything starchier than the aforementioned carrot…too much sugar! You will have boozy cabbage juice/vinegar before you know it. What about parsnips? I mean… what about parsnips? Go for it. LMK.
High-sugar, high-moisture vegetables.
Onions and Garlic are an absolute must for most fermented vegetables, especially if you still want to eat the fermented product while it's still alive and all pro-biotic (that's redundant). German sauerkraut is fermented at one point and famously has no onions or garlic in it, but it is not usually probiotic when you do eat it because the cabbage's sugars have been all eaten up by the bacteria, and when there's nothing left to eat the poor little guys starve to death. When that happens they stop producing ethanol (the bubbly gas, product of fermentation, i.e alcohol) and just like wine that got left open last night, it goes sour. So, beyond being a food source for our bacterial buddies, onions and garlic happen to be a favorite food source, more so than other vegetables in this mixture, so this means they will eat them first, and eat the cabbage and turnips last, and while this is happening they are multiplying like family diners at a vegas buffet with free childcare, and if you have ever waited in line for a plate in such a scenario (don't ask), then you will know that the most prolific breeders win the buffet. I mean fermentation. Same thing. Point is, any other rando bacteria hanging around, maybe just on a solo-trip on their way back from the bathroom, will have less of a chance to sidle up and join the party, ruining your batch of fermented veg (and your stomach/butthole, if it's E.Coli. Please, for f***'s sake, wash your hands. Just do it. Please?)
*pro tip, if you're ever at a bar and the bartender pours you the last of a bottle of wine, politely put on your best Karen-will-call-the-manager face and gently ask him (because it's always a him in this case, ladies know) to pour that shit out and open a fresh bottle just for you because science. That wine, even if the dude only opened the bottle an hour ago, has been turned up and down and all around so many times that it is well-oxygenated by this point and tastes absolutely nothing like it should. Trust me, thank me later. Or don't.
Anyway… I used onions, sliced into rings, because I think they're prettier that way. I was lazy, and put the peeled garlic and ginger into a blender, and made it a puree instead of chopping it into a mince or slicing them into little slices. Works either way! By all means, practice your knife skills. 1 cabbage, take off the outer leaves, remove stem/core, then cut the cabbage into wedges or chunks, nothing too fancy. I peeled the turnips because…no reason, I just wanted to make a really purple vegetable stock with them and the cabbage scraps. Then I cut the turnips into 1 inch-ish cubes… this part is important, because the size of the cabbage and turnip chunks to be about the same according to surface area, which will determine the amount of time it will take to ferment everything (and also bite-size is way easier to manage). But, if you were a neolithic farmer who just discovered salt preservation, chances are you'd just throw everything whole into a vessel, and cover it with salt you just traded your daughter for. Who cares, by next winter you'll probably have another girl-child and free fermented vegetables. Science.
Now do some science.
Kurt Vonnegut said science is magic made into reality. It's cool to think of it like that, but the only people who think of food as magic are people who have never made food, like our friend the daughter-selling slaver I mean farmer from the Neolithic era. There is a process, and it's not exact, but that doesn't mean it's not based on science, it's just largely based on something that is very contextual, and that's context.
We've already talked about some things that can shape the context of your process: which vegetables you choose to ferment, how big or small you want to cut them, how warm or cold it is in your house and OH GOD FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET INFANT JESUS WASH YOUR HANDS!!!!!!! Do everything you can to NOT introduce other bacteria into the mix. OK but science is knowledgeable-ish, right? How do we know we're not doing the thing we're not supposed to without a microscope? Well, my friend, it is now absolutely clear to me you have never cooked anything ever without making yourself or someone else sick because the SUPER obvious answer to that is to … yep, wash your hands first and often, number 1.
Also, ONLY use clean equipment, surfaces, and ingredients (you attain that state of cleanliness by washing these things also, before, during, and after all cooking processes but especially this one). You can wash your vegetables by giving them a rinse with cool water, then letting them sit in a mild bath of cool water with a lower pH than tap water. Achieve that by throwing in a capful of white vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice into the water the vegetables bathe in. Don't worry about being surgery-sterile (overboard, much?), but I would recommend using the sanitize setting on your dishwasher with your knives and mixing bowls and other stuffs, and if you don't have a dishwasher then just wash with warm water and soap as usual, then rinse with water that is as absolutely as hot as you can stand it, then letting all your things air-dry before using. Air-dry is important, because towels are breeding grounds for all kinds of unhelpful bacteria and germs, and bacteria cannot live on non-porous surfaces with no food, incubation, while being exposed to too much oxygen, and rapidly shrinking amounts of moisture. While they might not thrive and colonize to breed (until they find what they want!) bacterial cultures could still get smeared on from the towel and dormantly rest there. You know that smell, when it's time to wash a kitchen towel? That's some ucky bacteria making that smell. Does your dish sponge smell like that? Sanitize it in your dishwasher, or throw it away. Right now. Then wash your hands. Maybe twice.
OK, we did all that, but Carrie, I don't understand. My fingies are so clean, and so is my kitchen now (you're welcome), and the veggies look like just normal veggies. Did you forget to tell us where to buy the L. Bacillus Acidophilus? Um, did you forget to tell me that you are an artesanal champagne brewer, and you only buy fermentable bacteria online, or from highly-curated and overhyped gourmet markets? Shipped to you in too much earth-killing insulated packaging like a Whole Foods SCOBY? Get a grip.
Sorry, that was a little mean. But the truth is (imagine me doing a Yoda-voice) Inside and all around you, L. Bacillus is.
Yeah, it's true! Starting when you were a wee babe, you got it from your mother's milk, if you were lucky enough to be breastfed, like my older brother. If you're the middle child of a working-class poor family like me, then you might not have gotten it from breast milk but you got it from somewhere. It's the reason your parents would watch you eating dirt off the floor and just shrug while looking at each other and saying "eh, it's good bacteria. Right?" and then go on drinking Zima while smoking inside of a Dunkn' Donuts and agreeing or disagreeing with whatever Regan was doing at the time, depending on their skin color and income bracket. So, yeah, trust me, L. Bacillus will get there. You put out all the tasty little thirst-traps it loves, the garlic and onions and cabbage, and you made a lovely, comfy, clean home for it to come occupy by genociding all the wild yeasts and bacteria that pre-existed before your capitalistic greed took over (history will remember), first with a rinse in the tub of acidic water, and then by throwing salt at the whole mess and massaging it. With your hands. Yes, those hands. The clean ones. Why do you think it was so important to keep washing them? Your hands, armpits, feet, groin, and mouth are where bacteria loves to congregate because of all the moisture and heat and contact with others. Just shut up and think about science. And don't try to massage anything with your groin, that is highly not OK. Your armpits come in contact with lots of stuff, too, you just don't realize it because we're constantly worried about pit-stains and smells and
waaaaaaaiiitt…. Yup, that's how it works. Bacterial transfer, via contact with moisture. Sprinkle enough sea-salt (my preference, as a chef, but honestly if all you have is iodized table salt, chemically it should work) to make a really gritty environment for all your lovely smooth-surfaced vegetables (for about the 2 - 2.5 pounds of vegetables I used in this batch, I put in about a handful of sea salt, or ¼ - ⅓ of a cup. Science.), and then massage it with your bare hands. This is the only time throughout the entire process I want you to actually touch the vegetables and everything with your bare hands, seriously. You, you bacterial host, you unknowing puppet of bioengineering, you cog in the natural ecosystem, you are transferring part of the bacterial body that lives inside of you and on you and around you onto the cabbage and onions and turnip by massaging the salt into it all with your bare hands. In bacterial terms, this is what we call enculturing. Really. And you thought I was joking about the colonizer stuff… I wasn't, only slightly exaggerating. The salt does a few things: it lacerates the vegetables, which make them more susceptible to bacterial transfer. 2nd, through a process called osmosis, it begins what is essentially a fluid transfer between you and the vegetables, a transfer which carries strains of the L. Bacillus through your bloodstream and skin via your sweat/moisture loss because of the salt. Lasty, contrary to what you might think, the salt actually creates an antimicrobial and antibacterial environment, which is why you don't want too much salt.
Too much salt means your L. Bacillus will never thrive, or it will take wayyyyy too long to make your fermented vegetables, because they're so well-preserved with the salt they stay untouched for months and months until all that's left is cabbage in a salt-brine even the donkey doesn't want but sailors out at sea for months at a time really appreciate. However, just like any imprisoned population turned into a colony on behalf of a ruling empire, there's a bit of a caste system among bacteria, and only the strongest survive the transfer. Like the pilgrims on the Mayflower, and whatnot. The L. Bacillus that do survive the transfer are going to be strong, hearty, and really happy to find all this super-available food-stuffs ready to go, the onions and garlic - our high-sugar, high moisture items. They already survived the transfer at the current saline level, so it's not actually a problem for them, they're good to go and ready to start a population boom right away. And so they do. After you've thoroughly massaged the inoculated population like you're Queen Isabella convincing a bunch of pirates they're doing God's work by risking their lives to find the New World, you're just gonna leave them to it for a little while - about a half hour should be good, uncovered is fine. After a half hour, the vegetables should be as wilted as a conquered land. Yeesh, where was my head for this whole entry?
Containing the carnage,and processing what you've set in motion.
Um, ok, I guess we're just going to ride this out until it's done.
So, the first-contact colonizers were strong and began populating the cabbage, according to God's plan. But the first generation that was born on the new terrain…well, they're a different story. Genetic traits pass on generation to generation in bacteria, just like us, but everyone is fragile when young. Some kids need time, you know? Also, a bacterial generation is when cells divide, about every thirty minutes. So by the time we come back to the wilted veg, the next generation should be about ready to start breeding and multiplying as well, but because we don't have the same fitness test as the parent generation did (transfer through saline), we're going to make it easier on them by containing the whole environment and also reducing some stressors - reducing saline and oxygen levels mainly - by adding some fresh water, essential for all life. Reducing saline makes it easier on them to do their thing, and reducing the oxygen levels creates a non-competitive environment for them to multiply without pesky insurgences of whatever native microbes are still there.
So, this time using a spoon, preferably stainless steel or wood, scoop your veggies and juice (technically a brine) into a large glass seal-able container or several smaller containers. Distribute everything evenly, packing down if you have to, then pour enough cool, filtered water into your vessel(s) to cover the vegetables by about a half inch. If it floats to the top then you can find a way to weigh it down…sometimes I use a glass disk or a small plate if it fits inside the vessel you chose. Other times I think ahead and save back a couple whole leaves of the cabbage, and kind of layer it all on top like I am tucking my babies in…think of putting the top crust of a pie over the filling. Gentle, but secure. And that's it!
Put a lid on it so flies and stuff can't get in , but not so tightly that it gets sealed off from gas-exchange (or else you'll have an explosion later as the bacteria burps methane and it has nowhere to go. Don't worry about the anaerobic nature of it all… the gases produced by the fermentation process actually very lightly settle over the top surface of water/brine, creating a gaseous seal instead of a vacuum (physical seal) against O2 exchange like canning does. What you can do is lightly screw on the lid, or cover the crock with its cover, and then cover that with a clean tea-towel to prevent any dust or bug settling on the soon-to-be-delicious smelling cauldron of pre-probiotics. Within 6 hours you'll begin to smell the wafting scent of garlic and onion as the bacteria go absolutely nuts, eating that food source and farting out similar-smelling farts for days. It will only get stronger for 72 hours, then suddenly the rampant garlic and onion smell will dissipate, to be replaced by the smell of… something vaguely food-like.
Oh, it's food now, of course, go ahead and taste it and you'll see what I mean! Use a fork/utensil, not your fingies, even if they are clean, cause it's just too risky at this point. But if you do taste it, you'll find that the brine has changed from a bath made from the salty tears of colonized cabbage raw-dogged by your fists to a bubbly, fermenty, soupy-flavor that is already nuanced and healthy tasting. Go figure. Science. Don't forget FAT TOM, the temperature of the room will affect the time it takes to get to this and all other stages of fermentation. This stage means that the bacteria have eaten up all the high-sugar veg that's available, and now like a bunch of millennials who are inheriting a world they didn't build based on values that never considered their best interest as individuals in a global economy, the newer generations are just going to take what they can get and try and turn the cabbage and turnips into a tech-boom. And so they do.
It would take them FOREVER to "decompose", or collectively digest/process the sugar in the cabbage and turnips to the same point of used-up as their parents did with the garlic and onion, but we actually don't really want them to. Too long would mean soggy cabbage, and some weird-texture turnips that kind of dissolve when you eat them. I like to crunch on everything, and in my mind according to this process it should take about 7 days minimum at room temperature, stirring once a day maximum with tongs or a spoon, to aerate, and tasting as you go to gauge how things are (it really will move from salty cabbage water to something that tastes like a veggie broth and a jar of pickles burped a bubbly baby together). Then after that, have a taste test and choose your own adventure. You can:
Decide it's ready because it tastes good and feels like food in your mouth, and when you stir the mixture you see bubbles appear - one of the surest signs it's ready, and actively alive. Go ahead and move it to the fridge to slow down all the processes. It's ready to eat at any time after this, and your LIVE probiotic (redundant word usage, marketing ploy) fermented vegetables will stay sedated but alive for weeks and weeks in the fridge. You don't HAVE to refrigerate this mixture, by any means, especially if you loooovee things to be nice and soft and want to have a more homogenous texture at the end of it all. Sometimes when I make fermented hot sauce I go through this whole process never refrigerating anything, and the flavor only gets better.
Decide it's still too salty and "watery" tasting. In this case, you might have added too much salt. Give it more time, but if you need it to be ready soon, you can help things along. Chop up another head of garlic and maybe half an onion this time, and put those in there with some more water. It's ok if there is way more water than you need, there's nothing wrong with some extra probiotic brine to mix into your gut-cleansing morning health shots. With the fresh water and added sugar, let it all sit for another 48 hours, and then keep a close eye on it because chances are it really was the salt level that was holding it back, and once you hit the right saline level and pH it will take off. Taste every day (using a utensil, not your fingies - even if they're clean), and refer to option A.
Woah, did you sniff that? That faintly rotten, composty-vinegar smell is not good. You know the one. That is the smell of a rogue mold spore, probably because you used your grandma's heirloom wooden spoon you refuse to use soap on to stir the mix instead of germaphobic stainless steel. Or it might have been carried in the air by a rotten lemon hiding on the bottom of your curated, perfectly arranged bowl of exotic citrus you keep on the counter to prove how vibrant of a person you are in background-bragging oriented selfies about alkalization. Don't be an influencer. Sigh. Curse. Grieve. Fret. Whatever, just feel your feelings about it. And then, sadly, you gotta do something with this accident. Your options are:
Abort. Down the drain, garbage, toilet, whatever. Chef's choice. Try again, because practice makes perfect.
Salvage. Is there any salvage left? Up to you, and how dearly you'd miss that cabbage. Mold famously is parallel to bacteria in human evolution and cuisine - it has its uses in medicines and exotic cheeses that science claims credit for but was really an accident of nature, just like this. You won't die, probably. But if you're starving and determined not to "waste" your ingredients, put everything into a big stew pot and boil it with lentils like a real hippie. There you go. Done. Add curry and tahini to taste, and put some thai chilis in there too, just to prove to people that you made it taste like that on purpose. If you are immunocompromised or have other issues with mold, NEVER take this option. Choose violence, because you are wrathful and vengeful, so abort. No amount of boiling will 100% remove the risk of ingesting mold, because our awesome pharmaceutical industry in America has encouraged the evolution of stronger and more resistant…everything. So be it! Then try again, because practice makes perfect.
Pray. That's right. Bestow upon that mix more salt of the earth (or sea) - at least a generous handful, please. Wave your (washed, clean) hands over it, mumble-singing a celestial blessing, praising the strength and vitality of our lil' chosen ones, L. Bacillus, for you are the god of this creation and it would please you, dammit, to see them go forth and multiply upon your holy works. If this is your decision, then god be with you. Cast your spell, and then 24 hours later put it in the fridge or throw it out no matter what. If it's working, it will work in the fridge just as well. You're never going to fully kill the mold, is the thing, but you can slow it down enough to give the bacteria a fighting chance to actually ferment something, and if they do get that chance it could take up to 10 days or 2 weeks in the fridge to notice. Before then, you're just treating yourself to cold, salty, halfway fermented cabbage. The mold is there, so if/when you do get a fermented product it's "shelf-life" in the refrigerator is much much shorter than a healthy batch.
If you are immunocompromised or have other issues with mold, NEVER take this option. Choose violence, because you are wrathful and vengeful. Better to abort. So be it! Try again, because practice makes perfect.
I wrote this quiz for an assignment, which asks ten questions about preferences, values, fears, and institutional relationships, and then delivers brutally honest (satirized) results, revealing which academic department would have tenured you. The five possible outcomes are Forestry, Biology, Sociology, Liberal Arts, and Journalism.
The quiz uses specificity of departments and real-life situations as a hook. This specificity creates in-group recognition, which drives sharing within communities. People tag each other. They argue. They defend their fields.
Designer's Note: On Satire and Virality
I wanted to test whether niche satire could achieve virality by leveraging what media theorists have identified as the core engine of shareable content: identity. Personality quizzes work because they give people a result they want to broadcast, something that proclaims who they are to their network.
I also wanted to play with how satire can process institutional critique. The quiz addresses real issues—adjunct exploitation, corporatization of research, gendered power dynamics, the defunding of humanities—and packages them as humor. The question becomes: can we create antibodies against institutional dysfunction through comedic recognition?
As the old-new saying goes: if the product is free, you are the product. But perhaps, occasionally, the product can also be a mirror.
Side effects of this quiz may include: existential dread about career choices, sudden urge to unionize, and involuntary eye-rolling at administrative emails.
I never intended to become a digital communications specialist. In fact, I actively resisted it. My journey began in analog spaces, in the warm glow of radio broadcast studios where connection happened live, unedited, and irrevocably human. I started volunteering at a community radio station in the Pacific Northwest around 2015, after spending nearly a decade working as a chef. The transition felt natural at the time because both fields centered on the same fundamental principle: meeting people where they are and creating experiences that matter.
What drew me to radio was its immediacy and authenticity. I contributed reporting to feminist-focused programs covering news and social issues, and eventually produced a late-night music variety show that aired every other Thursday at midnight. The best part was that everything happened live and in person. Connections formed in the studio translated directly onto the airwaves and into our listening community. There was no algorithm deciding who heard what, no engagement metrics to chase, no viral coefficient to optimize. Just people, sound waves, and shared experience.
I am passionate about two things in this field: factual content creation for educational and infotainment spaces, and studying how humans communicate and connect. Reality, I've found, is far more interesting than media spin or marketing tricks. I love factual content not just because it's more real, but because reality offers narratives and complexities that no staged stunt can match. This passion extends to accessible content formatting and disability services work I've done, believing that factual and compassionate representation through media is an obligation to everyone, especially those vulnerable to exploitation through misinformation or inaccessible design.
The Virus We Carry
One of our course texts compared virality to a biohacking agent like influenza, reproducing through a parasitic relationship with its living host. The comparison struck me deeply. The viral agent isn't considered alive until it encounters living tissue, its host body. Once inside, we either develop antibodies to cope with constant exposure or receive them through intervention, but either way, the virus becomes a permanent part of us, evolving alongside and inside of us for the duration of our lifetimes.
I started thinking about digital communication and viral marketing through this lens. What antibodies have we developed against constant information barrage? What vaccines exist against manipulation? Understanding how viral content spreads helps me create work that builds resistance rather than susceptibility, that offers immunity rather than infection. When there is no point to content, you are the point. You become the product being harvested, packaged, and sold.
I noticed this acutely when examining viral quiz platforms. Every quiz, no matter how innocuous or ironic, gathered valuable demographic information. Which foods do you prefer? Which decade's aesthetics appeal to you? Which countries have you visited? Each answer feeds marketing databases and government surveillance apparatuses alike. The old-new saying holds: if the product is free, you are the product. Even quizzes asking about journal prompts or deepest fears extract data while offering the illusion of self-discovery.
The Hundred-Dollar Sandwich
Another reading discussed how a restaurateur sold a regional sandwich for one hundred dollars in 2004 by leveraging luxury concepts, nostalgia, name recognition, and price elitism. He created buzz by attaching an outrageous price to a humble menu item, then delivering decadence exotic enough to justify the cost and generate word-of-mouth marketing. It worked because people wanted the intangible storytelling experience of being there, of having bragging rights.
I recognized this strategy immediately from my own experience as a private chef working for elite clients on luxury vessels. One client ate simple sandwiches presented on fine china without crusts. The job was simultaneously easy and difficult: easy because the marketing was done by the environment itself, but hard because my value depended entirely on maintaining the story we all told about exclusivity and premium experience. I wore the chef coat and received credit for basic ingredients because of the narrative we constructed together.
The Reluctant Digital Turn
Despite my background in analog media and my philosophical resistance to internet culture, my education and professional goals increasingly required digital communication skills. I learned to be a paid professional creator, podcast editor, and digital communications specialist not because I wanted to, but because the field demanded it. The irony isn't lost on me: an anti-internet user learning to navigate social media platforms, an analog broadcast lover mastering digital tools, someone who values the ephemeral nature of live radio now archiving and editing audio for perpetual digital access.
What I learned about media entrepreneurship is the necessity of flexibility and the ability to pivot. Both your media and your plans must adapt. I was surprised to discover that a major microblogging platform started as a podcasting service before transforming into something entirely different. The founder, a fifth-generation journalist, brought serious journalistic rigor to what many dismissed as trivial. Similarly, the editor of a viral content platform initially turned down the position due to the same prejudices I held about internet media, but returned for the opportunity to make meaningful connections by tapping the power of the medium itself.
Both demonstrated incredible flexibility paired with core integrity in their pivots. That's something I carry forward: you can adapt your methods without abandoning your values. You can work in digital spaces while maintaining analog principles of authenticity and human connection. You can understand viral mechanics without becoming a virus yourself.
I believe communication and connection will continue steering human evolution, just as they have since the invention of language. Understanding how information spreads in digital ecosystems helps me develop content that creates antibodies and resistance rather than susceptibility to viral illness. My work now bridges both worlds: the warmth of analog human connection and the reach of digital distribution, always asking how we can use these tools to tell true stories, build genuine understanding, and resist the extractive logics of surveillance capitalism.
The seed found friends and sprouted, and we're all for sale on a grocery store shelf.
