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PRESERVE THE BOUNTY
A Seasonal Fermentation & Pickling Workshop.
program overview
What does abundance look like when we meet it with care?
Early summer is when farmers markets and CSA boxes start to overflow — more than any fridge can hold, more than any one meal can use. This workshop is about learning how to respond to that moment with intention. How to slow down, pay attention to what’s at peak, and turn a surplus of beautiful produce into something that lasts.
Using fresh seasonal vegetables sourced directly from local farms, we’ll spend the afternoon working through two preservation techniques that belong in every home kitchen — one ancient and alive, one fast and endlessly versatile.
Hands-on projects
Fermented Tomato Salsa — We’ll build a lacto-fermented salsa using peak-season tomatoes, chilies, garlic, and a live starter brine that jump-starts fermentation. The result is a salsa with more depth, more complexity, and more life than anything you can make with heat or acid alone. In two to three days it’s ready to eat. It keeps evolving from there.
Vinegar-Pickled Mixed Vegetables — We’ll make a crisp, balanced quick pickle using a house brine ratio you’ll memorize in five minutes and use for the rest of your life. The brine is made with house-crafted vinegar — rosé and white wine — and poured over a seasonal mix of cucumbers, summer squash, and green beans packed with aromatics. These go home ready to eat and keep for weeks.
WHILE WE WORK: We’ll graze throughout the afternoon on a seasonal vegetable and dip platter alongside pickles and ferments from previous batches — so you can taste exactly where your jars are going before they get there. This isn’t a snack. It’s a tasting of the whole practice.
What you leave with
- Two jars of preserved vegetables, ready to finish at home
- A fermentation and pickling guide with ratios, timelines, and troubleshooting
- The recipes made in class, written to be repeated without looking anything up
- Enough understanding of the why behind each technique to adapt, improvise, and make it your own
- Confidence to look at a pile of summer produce and know exactly what to do with it
instructor Overview
Sam Paone
Sam Paone is a Sonoma-based cook, preservationist, and the founder of Golden State Pickle Works and Collective Cultures. She’s best known for her deeply seasonal approach to fermentation, pickling, and pantry-building—work that sits at the intersection of tradition, practicality, and everyday cooking.
Sam is the creator and host of Jarring Everything, a food series that explores approachable ways to think about ingredients differently. Filmed in her Sonoma production kitchen and rooted in local agriculture, the show focuses on techniques like fermentation, dehydration, vinegar-making, and preserving—not as trends, but as useful, hopeful skills anyone can learn.
Her work is driven by curiosity, care, and community. Sam collaborates closely with farmers, cooks with what’s abundant, and believes that learning how to preserve food is a way to feel more grounded in an often uncertain world. Whether she’s teaching a workshop, making hoshigaki from local persimmons, or talking through salt percentages on a gram scale, her goal is always the same: to make preservation feel accessible, human, and deeply nourishing.
Isabel Beer for @indextribune / Photos courtesy @goldenstatepickleworks
http://www.goldenstatepickleworks.com
Instagram: @goldenstatepickleworks
Membership Has It’s Benefits
All Silver Memberships and above receive 10% off the registration cost for any class purchase over $40.
Materials fees are not discounted.
Membership helps support our programs, events, and financial aid programs.
Become a member today and find community, connection, and creativity.
Class FAQ
We ask that you notify us at least 10 days in advance of a class if you need to cancel your registration. You may cancel by phone or email and we will gladly offer you a refund or credit toward a future class. If you cancel with less than 10 days’ notice, we will not be able to provide refunds, due to our contractual obligations and material purchases for each class.
Sometimes, the Sonoma Community Center has to cancel a class due to low enrollment or unforeseen circumstances, such as a natural disaster or health emergency. If this happens and we do not offer a reschedule date, you will be refunded 100% of your registration fee (minus the payment processing and services fee), or credit towards a future class. If we are able to offer a reschedule date but you are unable to make the new date, we will gladly offer credit towards a future class.
All credits must be used within 1 year.
You can view our full class policies and guidelines here.
The Sonoma Community Center is committed to creating an accessible learning environment. If you require any special considerations(medical, physical, learning) please share them with Sean Baskin, Program Associate, by emailing him at [email protected] so that he can forward them to the relevant Program Director and Instructor.
Late additions to any program, class, or workshop that has already begun will be allowed on a per-case basis depending upon the Program Director & instructors approval. Late additions will have to pay the full registration cost of the class, along with any materials fees, and will not be prorated for the time missed. You may reach out to the program directors directly, or the Program Associate Sean Baskin at [email protected] to request a late addition.
We are always looking for new instructors. You can fill out the form directly here.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
2:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 from 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm
Experience Level
All-Levels, Beginning, Intermediate and AdvancedAge(s)
18-overRegistration Cost:
$125
Materials Fee:
Included
Total Registration Cost:
$125
