I pulled up to David Kaisel’s house in Rumsey, California on a clear June afternoon. The ride from the Bay Area was curvy and lined with popping colors of wildflowers, and as I got further and further from the city, I started to feel the freedom of California’s hope and promise fill me. I pulled up and Max, David’s trusty canine companion, came out to greet me, David close at his heels. I’d met David at the Grain Gathering at the WSU Bread Lab back in 2015 and it was obvious that this man has a passion for bringing … Read more

“It’s summer camp for grain nerds.” ~Annie Moss, Seastar Bakery   Exactly! I’ve been gathering in the fields and classrooms of WSU Bread Lab for four years now and I’ve struggled to find the one-liner that describes what this annual pilgrimage is all about.   Thoughts/Lessons/Notes from the Grain Gathering 2017   ~Always, always, always discuss any lecture you hear with at least three other women and at least one person of color. You need perspective in this wide world and you can only get it from talking about ideas, but especially—and I mean ESPECIALLY—from listening to other perspectives … Read more

~Originally published in Bake From Scratch Magazine, Fall 2016 I first met Nan Kohler at a grain conference. In a room packed with wheat breeders, grass seed farmers, and bakers, Nan introduced herself as a miller. Not a baker who occasionally tried making flour, or a grass seed farmer who needed to figure out how to get their product to market, but a miller, plain and simple. She told me about Grist & Toll, a small milling operation that she’d opened in 2012 in Los Angeles. I’d never thought about how flour is made or the technicalities of turning … Read more

The first time I met Brant, he was deep in conversation with a mutual friend, regaling her about discovering kaymak in Turkey. A small crowd was gathering. Many of us had never heard of this Turkish fresh cheese, but Brant’s love of food and culture and the discovery of where they cross was totally infectious. I reached out the next day and we made lunch plans. I showed up with a loaf of bread and he showed up with homemade mozzarella. We were instant friends. It turned out that he’d been traveling the world taking lessons near and far … Read more