Grain Gathering 2016

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Grain Gathering 2016 We gather in a meadow surrounded by orchards and grain fields. We sit cross-legged in the sun and talk about farming and milling and baking and everything in between. There are big, white tents sheltering communal tables lined with cutting boards spilling over with loaves made with different varietals of wheat, rye, barley, and spelt. Dr. Steven Jones recites poetry and we listen with open hearts, ready to take it all in, believing beyond belief for the first time in a long time that the food system just might…actually could…can be a better place that works … Read more

What is Good Bread?

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Hello fellow bread lovers. Here’s the conundrum. I’m walking through a farmer’s market and I come across the most luxurious stand of pastries and breads. They’re piled high and brimming with ingredients that sing the seasons. A line is wrapped halfway around the block and the gentle baker stands at attention despite having been up since what most of us call middle-of-the-night. I fall in line sucking down a molasses & dark chocolate cold brew that I picked up at the kiosk next door. Then, after a lovely chat with the nice woman standing next to me who spends … Read more

Meet Amy Halloran

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I met Amy Halloran’s book about 10 minutes before I met Amy. I arrived at the Grain Gathering last summer, and with a few moments to spare before a bread-baking session, I wandered over to the book tent. What’s new in the world of baking? I wondered as my fingers brushed over the myriad volumes filled with recipes and techniques. Then I stopped. I was peering down at a copy of The New Bread Basket, and this book seemed completely different. A soft-covered, thin-spined book that featured a photo of stalks of grain rather than finished loaves of bread, … Read more

Barley Day

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Standing in the field, there was silence before the rains came. It was just me and the plant for a moment—everyone else in the distance—and the plant, barley, was hooded and free. It poked in the wind against a six-row neighbor, and begged the question: Why don’t you need more of me? The plant breeders were about to pull up behind, talking all their homozygosity and double haploid smack. But first they’d grab another beer from the station set up for swilling in the field. They are a thirsty lot, these plant breeders, especially on #BarleyDay. I looked back … Read more

Overproofed

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Life sets a pace. For all of us, we wake each day to a condition of expansion and simultaneous contraction. Life gives us dichotomous opportunities to push ever outward, and then snaps us back into our selves as our essence tugs around the edges of our experiences. It is in this luscious ferment of each new day that we grow and our lives become full. Sometimes we rise up to our day slack-jawed with internal heat. Other days we crawl towards an imaginary finish line through the motions of what’s before us. Most of the time we realize that … Read more

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