The Shenandoah Valley is my 2019 home-base. I spend a fair amount of time on the road in my home-on-wheels and have done so since 2013. Other places that are home to me: Eugene, OR; New York City; Slab City, CA; New Jersey's Delaware Valley; and Houston, TX. My greatest pleasures are chance encounters with sensitive, thoughtful, well-traveled people as well as creating and sharing a homemade meal that makes your tastebuds tingle. I believe stories make the world a more engaging place, both listening to and telling them, and that's just one gift that comes with travel. I'm also passionate about building and designing beautiful, functional, energy-positive spaces with focus on sustainability.

My primary philosophy: care for the earth and all its creatures.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I had Couchsurfing in 2004, while I was traveling Europe, and met dozens of great people through this site. It's changed a lot and I am here to start anew! I have many friends on this site, though (mostly) through chance meetings while traveling and teaching.

What I love most about staying with local people is the more intimate perspective of a place. I also love hosting people and sharing my love for a place with others.

Interests

I teach food fermentation. I also write about food traditions and sustainable practice in the kitchen and on the land. I came out with a book in fall 2017 about fermentation, sustainable farming, and travel, so those are more or less my areas of expertise.

I'm interested in everything plant-, animal-, and food-related. I'm committed to living simply and leaving the earth in better shape than when first arrived. I do my best to integrate salvaged materials into my building projects, dumpster dive and/or grow all my food, practice barter when I am in need of goods or services, and build healthy, strong relationships.

I am reinventing the system and culture I was born into, (in conservative, corporate oil & gas Texas' America), which has been a life-long challenge and incredible joy. In the midst of that reinvention, I do my best to honor the fabric of my family culture by recognizing the privilege and trauma that comes along with it. I do feel I'm living my best life because of it -- I take every inch of opportunity to make positive changes and have a deep understanding of the tragedies that accompany corporate greed and the dismantling of ancestral traditions. That's to say, I've been working hard to right the wrongs from as early as I can remember.

• writing
• cooking
• traveling
• cycling
• journalism
• science
• rivers
• permaculture
• dance
• metaphysics
• feminism
• farming
• recycling
• upcycling
• primitive skills
• food culture
• foraging
• fermentation
• herbalism
• wild foods
• seed saving
• zerowaste
• feng shui
• earth
• occult
• food justice
• solar
• barter economy
• indigenous culture
• skill sharing
• appropriate technology
• education reform
• biodynamics
• ancestral wisdom
• environmentalim

Music, Movies, and Books

Music is one of my favorite languages, and I honestly listen to just about everything. A few genres that don't *quite* get me going are progressive rock, math rock, and metal. I've been on an Appalachian / Americana kick of late. I'm also very down with femme Rhythm and Blues lately. Classical Spanish guitar. Early American jazz. Outlaw country. Traditional folk tunes.

I love family dramas and quirky foreign films. I don't do a lot of watching these days, but I always loved anything by Pedro Almodovar. Intense emotional stuff that makes you go, "Nu-uh, no they didn't!!!"

Books are basically the love of my life. I especially love historical fiction, memoir, poetry, food writing and any non-fiction on the above interests. Some of my favorite authors are Milan Kundera, Tom Robbins, MFK Fisher, John Steinbeck, Rebecca Solnit, Bell Hooks and Diane Ackerman. There are a lot more and we probably have some books we love in common, so ask me.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Converted a 1986 military bus into a fermentation laboratory, workshop-space, and library and drove around the country for 4 years teaching people how to ferment their own food.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm a teacher and writer of fermentation by trade, so I can teach you all you want to know about fermented foods (yogurt, sauerkraut, cheese, miso, tempeh, kombucha, kimchi, wine), composting and other beneficial microbial communities.

The healing arts of ancient civilizations have always been a huge interest of mine. This has mostly manifested in food, but I'm also interested in Mesoamerican, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, farming methods, and astrology.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Food, stories, and a helping hand!

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, Denmark, England, Germany, Mexico, Scotland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Denmark, Scotland, United States