
upcoming events & classes
Offering innovative classes & events
Learn how to nourish your family &
eat like a human.
The Eastern Shore Food Lab’s mission is to preserve, revive, and infuse ancestral dietary approaches in food to create a nourishing, ethical, accessible, and sustainable food system.
To do this, the ESFL has identified 3 unique purposes:
Preserve - Identify and document ancestral food practices in the archaeological and anthropological records and around the world
Inspire - Spread the message locally and worldwide to create a framework for meeting current and future modern dietary needs
Empower - Equip people with the skills and knowledge to transform basic ingredients into the most nourishing food possible for themselves, their families and their communitiesEquip people with the skills and knowledge to transform basic ingredients into the most nourishing food possible for themselves, their families and their communities
Empowering our Community
Events inspire.
Classes empower.
Learn about classes below but all class registrations are completed on the Eat Like a Human website (under classes) to ensure funding properly goes through our non-profit, The Eastern Shore Food Lab. Thank you for your support!

Taking Care of your Mother Weekend! Friday May 9th & 10th
What better gift for Mother’s Day than a “Taking Care of Your Mother” weekend!
This is not your typical “relaxing time at the spa” gift. Far from it!
Instead this is jam packed, two days’ worth of classes on Mother’s Day weekend 2024 specially tailored toward that special Mom/Grandmom/Mother-figure in your life. First, they will learn how to make and maintain the Sourdough Mother culture and how to use it to create several dishes on Friday night – all while enjoying wood-fired pizza made on our sourdough crust. Then on Saturday, they will be treated to breakfast at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen followed by a sourdough bread class and ends with lunch that includes sandwiches made on our sourdough bread.
Yep that’s right folks – you can treat your Mommas to Dinner on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday plus a Sourdough Mother and a Sourdough Breadmaking class all on Mother’s Day weekend. Gotta say we’ve got you covered!!
Itinerary:
Friday May 9, 2025:
Arrive at 5:00 and enjoy wood fired pizza (alcoholic beverages available) and the Sourdough Mother Class. The class should wrap up around 8:00pm that night.
Saturday May 10, 2025:
Arrive at 9:30 for breakfast (coffee and breakfast sandwich/waffle) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and then class starts at 10:00 and runs till 1:00.
Class is followed by lunch (drink and sandwich) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen
She’ll be bringing home a warm loaf, mother, and dough to continue her sourdough cooking adventures!
Here is more information on each class:
Sourdough Mother Class:
Learn how to take care of your mother 😉
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build, and
recipes for cooking with mother.
We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products from sourdough waffles, crackers, and beer cheese!
Sourdough Bread making Class:
This class will walk you through the long, slow fermentation that utilizes wild bacteria and yeasts transforms difficult, and dangerous to digest grains into nutrient dense, bioavailable, delicious bread.
Dr. Bill will discuss harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your mother culture all the way through to scoring and baking successful loaves in your home oven. You will literally go through every step of the bread making process (via some tv show cooking magic to make that all possible in 3 hours). This class builds upon the sourdough mother class but don’t worry – you can just take this one because we’ll give you some of our MSAK mother.
Each participant will take home a freshly baked loaf that they scored and baked plus a loaf of sourdough to bake at home!
This is the same process that he taught Brianna who ran with the knowledge and launched Rise by Brianna in April 2020 that is now the sourdough line of our Modern Stone Age Kitchen.
This course is the only thing standing between you and the ability to bake incredible, healthy loaves of bread for your family.




















Taking Care of your Mother Weekend! Friday May 11th and Saturday May 11th, 2024
What better gift for Mother’s Day than a “Taking Care of Your Mother” weekend!
This is not your typical “relaxing time at the spa” gift. Far from it!
Instead this is jam packed, two days’ worth of classes on Mother’s Day weekend 2023 specially tailored toward that special Mom/Grandmom/Mother-figure in your life. First, they will learn how to make and maintain the Sourdough Mother culture and how to use it to create several dishes on Friday night – all while enjoying wood-fired pizza made on our sourdough crust. Then on Saturday, they will be treated to breakfast at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen followed by a sourdough bread class and ends with lunch that includes sandwiches made on our sourdough bread.
Yep that’s right folks – you can treat your Mommas to Dinner on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday plus a Sourdough Mother and a Sourdough Breadmaking class all on Mother’s Day weekend. Gotta say we’ve got you covered!!
Itinerary:
Friday May 11, 2024:
Arrive at 5:00 and enjoy wood fired pizza (alcoholic beverages available) and the Sourdough Mother Class. The class should wrap up around 8:00pm that night.
Saturday May 12th, 2024:
Arrive at 9:30 for breakfast (coffee and breakfast sandwich/waffle) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and then class starts at 10:00 and runs till 1:00.
Class is followed by lunch (drink and sandwich) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen
She’ll be bringing home a warm loaf, mother, and dough to continue her sourdough cooking adventures!
Here is more information on each class:
Sourdough Mother Class:
Learn how to take care of your mother 😉
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build, and
recipes for cooking with mother.
We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products from sourdough waffles, crackers, and beer cheese!
Sourdough Bread making Class:
This class will walk you through the long, slow fermentation that utilizes wild bacteria and yeasts transforms difficult, and dangerous to digest grains into nutrient dense, bioavailable, delicious bread.
Dr. Bill will discuss harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your mother culture all the way through to scoring and baking successful loaves in your home oven. You will literally go through every step of the bread making process (via some tv show cooking magic to make that all possible in 3 hours). This class builds upon the sourdough mother class but don’t worry – you can just take this one because we’ll give you some of our MSAK mother.
Each participant will take home a freshly baked loaf that they scored and baked plus a loaf of sourdough to bake at home!
This is the same process that he taught Brianna who ran with the knowledge and launched Rise by Brianna in April 2020 that is now the sourdough line of our Modern Stone Age Kitchen.
This course is the only thing standing between you and the ability to bake incredible, healthy loaves of bread for your family.




















Taking Care of your Mother Weekend! Friday May 10th & 11th
What better gift for Mother’s Day than a “Taking Care of Your Mother” weekend!
This is not your typical “relaxing time at the spa” gift. Far from it!
Instead this is jam packed, two days’ worth of classes on Mother’s Day weekend 2024 specially tailored toward that special Mom/Grandmom/Mother-figure in your life. First, they will learn how to make and maintain the Sourdough Mother culture and how to use it to create several dishes on Friday night – all while enjoying wood-fired pizza made on our sourdough crust. Then on Saturday, they will be treated to breakfast at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen followed by a sourdough bread class and ends with lunch that includes sandwiches made on our sourdough bread.
Yep that’s right folks – you can treat your Mommas to Dinner on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday plus a Sourdough Mother and a Sourdough Breadmaking class all on Mother’s Day weekend. Gotta say we’ve got you covered!!
Itinerary:
Friday May 10, 2024:
Arrive at 5:00 and enjoy wood fired pizza (alcoholic beverages available) and the Sourdough Mother Class. The class should wrap up around 8:00pm that night.
Saturday May 11, 2024:
Arrive at 9:30 for breakfast (coffee and breakfast sandwich/waffle) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and then class starts at 10:00 and runs till 1:00.
Class is followed by lunch (drink and sandwich) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen
She’ll be bringing home a warm loaf, mother, and dough to continue her sourdough cooking adventures!
Here is more information on each class:
Sourdough Mother Class:
Learn how to take care of your mother 😉
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build, and
recipes for cooking with mother.
We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products from sourdough waffles, crackers, and beer cheese!
Sourdough Bread making Class:
This class will walk you through the long, slow fermentation that utilizes wild bacteria and yeasts transforms difficult, and dangerous to digest grains into nutrient dense, bioavailable, delicious bread.
Dr. Bill will discuss harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your mother culture all the way through to scoring and baking successful loaves in your home oven. You will literally go through every step of the bread making process (via some tv show cooking magic to make that all possible in 3 hours). This class builds upon the sourdough mother class but don’t worry – you can just take this one because we’ll give you some of our MSAK mother.
Each participant will take home a freshly baked loaf that they scored and baked plus a loaf of sourdough to bake at home!
This is the same process that he taught Brianna who ran with the knowledge and launched Rise by Brianna in April 2020 that is now the sourdough line of our Modern Stone Age Kitchen.
This course is the only thing standing between you and the ability to bake incredible, healthy loaves of bread for your family.




















Taking Care of your Mother Weekend! Friday May 12th and Saturday May 13th, 2023
What better gift for Mother’s Day than a “Taking Care of Your Mother” weekend!
This is not your typical “relaxing time at the spa” gift. Far from it!
Instead this is jam packed, two days’ worth of classes on Mother’s Day weekend 2023 specially tailored toward that special Mom/Grandmom/Mother-figure in your life. First, they will learn how to make and maintain the Sourdough Mother culture and how to use it to create several dishes on Friday night – all while enjoying wood-fired pizza made on our sourdough crust. Then on Saturday, they will be treated to breakfast at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen followed by a sourdough bread class and ends with lunch that includes sandwiches made on our sourdough bread.
Yep that’s right folks – you can treat your Mommas to Dinner on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday plus a Sourdough Mother and a Sourdough Breadmaking class all on Mother’s Day weekend. Gotta say we’ve got you covered!!
Itinerary:
Friday May 12, 2023:
Arrive at 5:00 and enjoy wood fired pizza (alcoholic beverages available) and the Sourdough Mother Class. The class should wrap up around 8:00pm that night.
Saturday May 13th, 2023:
Arrive at 9:30 for breakfast (coffee and breakfast sandwich/waffle) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and then class starts at 10:00 and runs till 1:00.
Class is followed by lunch (drink and sandwich) at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen
She’ll be bringing home a warm loaf, mother, and dough to continue her sourdough cooking adventures!
Here is more information on each class:
Sourdough Mother Class:
Learn how to take care of your mother 😉
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build, and
recipes for cooking with mother.
We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products from sourdough waffles, crackers, and beer cheese!
Sourdough Bread making Class:
This class will walk you through the long, slow fermentation that utilizes wild bacteria and yeasts transforms difficult, and dangerous to digest grains into nutrient dense, bioavailable, delicious bread.
Dr. Bill will discuss harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your mother culture all the way through to scoring and baking successful loaves in your home oven. You will literally go through every step of the bread making process (via some tv show cooking magic to make that all possible in 3 hours). This class builds upon the sourdough mother class but don’t worry – you can just take this one because we’ll give you some of our MSAK mother.
Each participant will take home a freshly baked loaf that they scored and baked plus a loaf of sourdough to bake at home!
This is the same process that he taught Brianna who ran with the knowledge and launched Rise by Brianna in April 2020 that is now the sourdough line of our Modern Stone Age Kitchen.
This course is the only thing standing between you and the ability to bake incredible, healthy loaves of bread for your family.




















Eat Like a Human 4-Day Intensive | Feb 2023
This 4-day, 7-class intensive workshop will teach you everything you need to know to nourish your family with the most nutrient dense and bioavailable foods from sourdough bread and fermented vegetables to pate and traditional cheese made by you in your own home kitchen!
Learn skills to create nourishing meals – made entirely from scratch – for your whole family in your home kitchen
You have been asking for an intensive cooking class where you can commit to learning how to eat like a human over a few days with like-minded community members focused on nutrition. We are excited to offer you this opportunity in February where you will get a chance to reconnect with your food, and understand what you should actually be putting into your body. This 7-class package will have you cooking and eating nutrient-dense, real food from sourdough bread to fresh yogurt to fermented carrots to pâté to fresh mozzarella cheese!
In this ever-changing world, it seems that nothing is constant anymore, or even guaranteed for that matter. But this – your health, the food that you put into your body and own connection with – is something you have complete control over.
Taking this Intensive will give you the tools and knowledge to make this healthy and delicious food in your home kitchen.
It’s time to Eat Like a Human again. Are you with us?
4 – Days of Learning how to Eat Like a Human in 7 Unique Classes!
Itinerary:
The 4-day intensive starts at 4:00PM on Friday February 17th and kicks off right away with a fermented vegetable class. Class will be followed by a special 100% scratch made sourdough wood-fired pizza dinner. You have the choice of making and cooking the pizza yourself or we can do it for you! The remaining three days of class, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, all begin at 8:00 am with coffee and breakfast followed by the first class of the day at 9:00. We will then break for lunch from 12-1. The second class each day will run from 1-4. Breakfasts and lunches are included and will be cooked by the Modern Stone Age Kitchen team. The afternoon class each day will end around 4:00 and you have time to walk around Chestertown or enjoy any of the other quaint Eastern Shore towns. Dinner Saturday and Sunday will be on your own. The 4-day intensive ends when the afternoon class finishes on Monday, approximately 4:00 pm. Lodging options are available through the Chestertown website.
Classes Included:
Fermented Vegetables
Fermented Dairy (butter, yogurt, kefir)
Cheesemaking
Nose-to-Tail Butchering in Your Home
Cooking with Offal
Sourdough Mother
Sourdough Bread
Friday February 17, 2023
4:00 – 7:00pm | Fermented Vegetables
Lacto-fermentation is one of the most important food processing technologies our ancestors ever created! Not only does it have the power to make plants safer and more nutritious, but it also enhances the flavor, aroma and texture of our food. Just think about the difference between raw cabbage and delicious, probiotic sauerkraut.
This fermented vegetable cooking class will cover the basics of lacto-fermentation including:
Sourcing high-quality ingredients and essential fermentation equipment for your kitchen,
The basics of lacto-fermented vegetables,
Recipe development and execution,
Prepping vegetables, scaling ingredients, initiating and controlling fermentation,
Fermenting whole vegetables (such as carrots which are perfect for school lunches), and cut up vegetables such as cabbage for sauerkraut and kimchi
You’ll leave prepared with multiple ferments to start bubbling on your counter to help nourish your family
Saturday February 18, 2023
9am – 12pm | Fermented Dairy: Butter, Yogurt & Kefir
This introductory course will cover the basics of dairy fermentation in a way that empowers you to begin to create your own fermented butter, kefir, and yogurt in your home!
We will cover all the following steps:
Sourcing the highest quality dairy possible and navigating the confusing grocery store dairy aisle,
Obtaining essential tools and supplies for fermenting dairy in your kitchen,
Handling both raw and pasteurized dairy safely,
Initiating and controlling the fermentation process with both raw and pasteurized milk,
Making both Mesophilic and Thermophilic yogurt,
Making fermented cream (crème fraîche, crema)
Making fermented butter and buttermilk,
Making cream cheese,
Making kefir.
1pm – 4pm | Cheesemaking Class
You can make real, nourishing and delicious cheeses in your home kitchen using traditional methods that produce a superior product in every way to anything you can buy at a store. Once you understand the process you only need 3 ingredients – milk, rennet and salt – to transform milk into its most delicious and nourishing form possible for our bodies!
This class will walk you step-by-step through the process of making stretched curd cheeses (mozzarella & ricotta) and cover everything from:
Initiating and controlling the fermentation process with both raw and pasteurized milk,
Using rennet and setting the curd,
Cutting, heating and stirring the curd to produce different results,
Making brines and storage solutions,
Stretching the curd and shaping different pasta filata cheeses including mozzarella, quesillo and Armenian string cheese,
Making ricotta.
Sunday February 19, 2023
9am – 12pm | Introduction to whole animal butchering in your kitchen
Butchering whole and large cuts of animals in your own home is more accessible than you think and is the number one way to ensure that you and your family are including animals in your diet in the most nourishing, ethical, sustainable, and economical ways possible!
This butchering class with cover the basics of home butchering including:
Sourcing high-quality animals and essential butchering equipment for your kitchen,
Safely handling meat, fat, bones, and offal
The basics of breaking down a whole chicken utilizing a nose-to-tail approach
The basics of breaking down a whole pig utilizing a nose-to-tail approach
Recipe development and execution
Grinding, packing, and storing
1pm – 4pm | What to do with the odd bits: Offal
Blood, fat, and organs (AKA offal) are the most nutrient dense and bioavailable parts of an animal. Including them in our diets not only nourishes us, but ensures that we are using animals in the most ethical and sustainable ways possible.
This offal class will cover topics such as:
Sourcing, cleaning and storing organs
Bone broth
Rendering fat & making cracklins’
Chicken liver pate
Deviled kidney and spleen
Pork rinds
Monday February 20, 2023
9am to 12pm | Sourdough Mother
Learn how to start, maintain, feed, and cook with sourdough mother. Our mother is the backbone of our Rise line of sourdough products and allows us to cook everything from bread to crackers to waffles. We will walk participants through all steps for how to get your mother actively growing, discuss the feeding schedule, learn how to maintain your mother even if you are away on vacation, and then transform it into delicious products. All students will bring their own sourdough mother so they can start baking sourdough at home.
This class will specifically focus on the sourdough mother process so participants will learn the science behind the:
fermentation process,
the math behind calculating your mother-build,
starting, maintaining, and feeding your sourdough mother, and
recipes for cooking with mother – pancakes, waffles, batter, crackers and beer cheese!
1pm to 4pm | Sourdough Bread
This introductory course will build upon the sourdough mother class and cover the entire process to make successful sourdough loaves in your home oven from:
Sourcing high-quality ingredients and essential bread-making tools for your kitchen,
Harnessing hyper-local bacteria and yeast to start your own mother culture,
Maintaining sourdough culture and using leftover mother,
Mixing, autolysing, folding, and scaling,
Pre-shaping and shaping dough,
Scoring and baking your hand built sourdough loaves in your home oven, and
Learning to control variables such as temperature and hydration to develop strategies to incorporate sourdough bread baking into YOUR schedule, so it can become a sustainable part of your cooking routine.


















