Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

Pull this book off my kitchen shelf, and you will find the pages splotchy and stuck together.  I use it a lot, and I love it.  Sandor’s book tells you how to make all sorts of delightful and healthful fermented foods, from yogurt, cheese and kefir to sauerkraut, vegetable krauts and kimchis, to sourdough breads, miso and tempeh, and the good ol’ fermented beverages we like to sip on the back porch.  I particularly like the book because his writing style is lovely, and because his mastery of the science enables him to explain where shortcuts and variations are possible, enabling the reader to quickly master this traditional craft.