Carefully Fermented Strawberries to fizz up your life

I woke up early on my first Monday(late April) at RuuRuu and Q's legendary Den of Creativity in Shibuya.
In walks Mrs Natural Bakery, Amy-san, with the Jar of fizzy strawberries in her hand.
Yesterday at my Permaculture after-party she tried to explain how she used strawberry and other fruit cultures instead of yeast, but I just couldn't get it.
Now I see.


Amy and Ruu Ruu prepare welcome party food, with city-delivered veggies grown by their organic farming mates.
Declutterers heaven (my sideline. I'm just lying in wait).


It works like this. You sterilize the jar with boiling water, preventing mould and not-good microbes from spoiling the batch.
You then fill the jar with fruit, and some cooled, once boiled water, to the rim. The good microbes go to work, and in a few days, you get this fizzy, CO2 filled 'vitamin water'.

You can drink it, and become as bright sparky as Asaba-san and her mate, my host Ruu Ruu


Or you can use it to make your bread rise, as Mrs Baker does.
The bread was lovely and light, but with no trace of strawberry taste.


Listen...Fizzy!

I once grew hanging basket strawberries on my balcony, their fragrance was intense, and kind of drove me crazy. They were safe from marauding snails up there, but the birds had a great party, till I decided to wrap them all in misty bridal tulle. They succeeded because I planted them in 100% home grown compost, made with lots of woody material - forest fruits are in their element in a fungi-rich forest-floor style compost.
And I am back in my element, surrounded by the dreamiest, go-getter Japanese.