PRESERVING YOUR CONNECTION TO FOOD
Our mission is to nourish and enrich our community through traditionally preserved foods and flavors; to share in the nostalgia of these ancient traditions and enjoy their healthful benefits. We aspire to create a community resource to empower and inspire a greater connection to food through :
Our bi-weekly workshops and private events bring people together to learn the simple art of preserving and fermenting in our community classroom. We host a variety of teachers including chefs, local makers and cookbook authors to lead our diverse assortment of classes.
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Our shop offers healthful and hard-to-find artisanal food products, alongside a selection of accessible, high-quality do-it-yourself supplies.
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Customized Food Project Advising
We take pride in featuring customized advising, inspiration and troubleshooting for your new or ongoing food projects.
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MEET THE TEAM
Elizabeth Vecchiarelli, owner and founder of Preserved, has over 15 years of experience with local, sustainable and handmade food. Partway through her food career, Elizabeth began to desire a more intimate connection with the food and beverages she loved, so she embarked on a journey to learn how they were made. She started (literally) from the ground up, learning sustainable farming practices through the work-travel organization, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Preserving the harvest from her urban garden was a natural next step. Inspired by Sandor Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation, she was soon experimenting with the alchemy of fermentation.
Through a combination of formal training, insatiable curiosity and extensive home experimentation, Elizabeth continued to explore the flavors and health benefits of traditionally-preserved foods, beverages and herbal medicines. She interned with the Teutonic Wine Company in Oregon, where she learned how wine can be made naturally using only ambient yeasts. She learned to make yogurt and fresh cheese at home, then leveled up to making aged raw cheeses at Garden Variety Cheese Company in Watsonville, CA.
Driven by a desire to understand why traditional preservation methods nourish our bodies as well as our taste buds, she studied Holistic Nutrition at Bauman College in Berkeley, California.
Elizabeth continues to be driven by the desire to learn, create and share the joys and health benefits of traditional culinary techniques at Preserved. Opening Preserved has allowed her to continue exploring preservation techniques and to share these ancient practices with her community. Not only are we preserving food, but together we are preserving tradition.
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Favorite Ferments: Honey Fermented Garlic, Curtido-Kraut, Preserved Kumquats
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Shop Fermentation Maven Nina Haroskiewicz joined Preserved in the Fall of 2022. Though Nina has always found inspiration from community when it comes to food appreciation, preparation, and preservation: from her grandfather's tomato garden; to learning to cook from college roommates in Santa Cruz; to borrowing MFK Fisher and Micheal Pollan books from coworkers. She'll never forget her first sip of kombucha and her momentary journey from disgust to pure delight, forever changing her life! Many kombucha brews later, Nina now finds herself brewing Jun with honey from her apiary and herbs from her garden. When not at the shop, you can find her working at several Berkeley farmers markets selling avocados and citrus. Her favorite part of being on the Preserved team is helping folks feel empowered to get started on their own fermentation journey. If she can do it, so can you!
Favorite Ferments: Milk Kefir, Jun with Lemon Verbena, and Pickled Jalapeños!
Whether teaching, consulting, working the soil or selling produce at local farmers’ markets, our Shop Fermentation Maven Lo Seidman has dedicated her life to fostering connections between people, food and the environment. Her professional career includes two decades teaching math and science to students from California to New York, London to Tokyo. More recently, as a workforce development trainer, a grad school professor and a small business owner, she has promoted sustainable building and land use practices. Outside of work, she immerses herself in the joys of hiking, volunteering and creating music. An avid fermenter, Lo loves pickling, canning and dehydrating as a means of preserving the bounty of the land. Her journey is one of constant exploration, driven by reverence for nature and a deep-seated desire to leave the world a better place than she found it.
Favorite Ferments: Pickled green tomatoes, raw goat milk yogurt and kimchi!
WHERE WE BEGAN
Preserved began in 2015 as a pop-up shop on historic Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California. We were generously supported in this endeavor by our friends at Good Neighbor, a Piedmont Avenue boutique that celebrates handmade homegoods. What began as a pop-up shop soon developed into a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership.
We built a 100 square-foot cedar shed in Neighbor's beautiful backyard (a rare gem in a busy retail district). Some called it the Tiny Shed of Wonder. The Tiny Shed housed a small but essential assortment of canning and fermentation supplies and DIY kits. Outside the shed stood two picnic tables where we hosted our bi-weekly workshops.
Over the course of a year, Preserved and Neighbor helped foster a community of DIY enthusiasts eager to learn and share. In 2016, Preserved was ready to move to our own independent storefront in Oakland's Temescal neighborhood. We expanded our offerings of kitchen supplies, incorporated a diverse selection of artisanal groceries and steadily increased our DIY workshop offerings. Here, Elizabeth's dream of creating a community space to learn about and share traditional food preservation methods has been fully realized.
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KQED
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EAST BAY EXPRESS
EDIBLE EAST BAY
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VISIT PRESERVED
Preserved is located at 5032 Telegraph Avenue, in fabulous Oakland, California.
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We are open Monday, Wednesday - Saturday
11am - 6pm, Sundays 11am - 5pm
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In-Store Pick-Up available for online orders, select this option at checkout.