2017 Grain Gathering Schedule
Draft #2 subject to change. Please check back for schedule updates.
Please note that lunch is not provided today.
Stephen Jones is a wheat breeder and the Director of the Washington State University Bread Lab. Stephen has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Davis and teaches graduate courses in advanced classical genetics and in the history and ethics of genetics. His first wheat crop was on five acres at Chico State University’s student farm in 1977. Together with his graduate students he breeds wheat and other grains for local uses to be grown on small farms in the coastal west. The Bread Lab is a combination think tank/baking laboratory where they experiment with improved flavor, nutrition and functionality of regional and obscure wheats.
Caring for Those We Feed and Those Feeding Us.
June Jo Lee is a food ethnographer, user/stakeholder experience designer and strategist.
She works within the food industry to accelerate the rate of change towards higher quality food experiences and regenerative food systems. She helps clients transform their cultural infrastructure by applying the empathic design principle of foodcare — care about those we are feeding and those feeding us.
June Jo is the resident Food Ethnographer for Google Food and UMass Dining, providing user insights, multi-stakeholder design and strategic visioning.
She is member of Google Food Lab, and speaker at food industry conferences/summits including, The Grain Gathering, Monterey Bay Aquarium, CIA/HSPH Menu of Change, Oldways, Nutritional and Health, American Heart Association, Barilla, PepsiCo.
Previously, she was VP of Strategic Insights at The Hartman Group leading qualitative research projects for Whole Foods Market, Safeway, Target, Starbucks’ Evolution Fresh, Dairy Management Inc, Kraft, Nestle, Hersey, Heinz, General Mills, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo.
In addition to her day job, June Jo is co-founder of Readers to Eaters, an independent children’s book publisher with a mission to promote food literacy. She debuts as co-author of Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix in May 2017. She studied food anthropology at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and started her career as a produce team member at the original Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas.
Baking with whole grains can seem daunting, especially at home. Understanding your ingredients and applying a few basic skills makes the whole process much easier. it’s not that hard and it’s really not that much effort. And the results are miles ahead of anything you can find on the grocery shelf. My aim in all my classes is to take the mystery out of bread baking, dispel the mythology and show you just how easy it is to get beautiful bread every time.
George DePasquale, Lifetime Artisan Baker
George is a founder, owner, and the Head Baker at The Essential Baking Company.
An Italian-American native of New York, George grew up in an Italian neighborhood on Long Island where his father worked as a barber. Fresh bread was easily found at the Italian bakery around the corner when his mother was not baking fresh bread at home.
George traveled to California where he started his baking career at the age of 20. George continued to work as a baker in San Francisco (while simultaneously pursuing his music career as an electric bass player). He moved to Seattle, and in 1994 launched The Essential Baking Company with his signature rustic breads.
George is most often found at The Essential Baking Company, pulling fresh baked loaves from the oven or forming dough alongside his highly skilled team of bakers. George teaches baking classes at local cooking schools and is a member of the Bread Baker’s Guild of America.
This session will include presentations on (1) the Culinary Breeding Network project and expansion into barley, (2) barley from a plant breeder’s perspective, and (3) barley from a cereal chemist/baker’s perspective. In this interactive sensory workshop, multiple barley varieties will be tasted across a range of preparations from whole grain to bread to tea.
Participants will experience barley color and flavor diversity during the session’s sensory evaluation. Come explore the world of barley!
Brigid Meints
Brigid grew up in Corvallis, OR and developed a love for plants at a young age. She earned a BA from Scripps College in Anthropology and Gender & Women’s Studies, but found her way back to plants after graduation when she began working for the barley breeding program at Oregon State University. She earned her MS from OSU in Crop Science with a focus in Plant Breeding & Genetics. Starting in the Fall of 2014, she began working towards a PhD under the direction of Dr. Stephen Jones. Her project focuses on breeding and trialing barley and dry beans for production in northwestern Washington.
Dr. Andrew Ross
Andrew is an award-winning teacher and Professor at Oregon State University in Crop and Soil Science & Food Science and Technology. His areas of interest are fundamental and applied research of cereal grain components, and wheat- and barley-based foods. The OSU Cereal Quality laboratory investigates the molecular phenomena that control the characteristics of cereal foods and uses this knowledge to maximize the probability of selecting new cereal varieties with improved end-use performance in conventional uses (bread,cookies, etc) and to where possible identify and exploit novel quality traits of potential value.
Lane Selman
Lane grew up on a citrus farm on Florida’s space coast where her Sicilian great-grandparents settled in the 1920s. She has a Bachelors degree in Agronomy and a Masters in Entomology, both from the University of Florida. She moved to Oregon in 2001 and since 2005 has been an agricultural researcher at Oregon State University working with dozens of organic vegetable farmers in the PNW on collaborative research projects. In 2012, Lane created the Culinary Breeding Network to increase communication and collaboration between plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, produce buyers and chefs to improve quality in vegetables with a focus on public and independent organic breeding work. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Do you want to share recipes with your customers, students, staff, or other people who don’t currently know how to make your product? You need recipes, meaning codified instructions that are written in a way a “civilian” can understand and have success with. In this class, we’ll talk a bit about how to find the right philosophical point of view for your recipes, and then how to develop, write, and test recipes that will accurately represent your artisanship and your brand.
Martha Holmberg
Martha is a food editor and cookbook author who lives in Portland, Oregon. She was the editor of Fine Cooking magazine for over a decade, was the food editor at The Oregonian newspaper, and founded MIX magazine, which covered the local food scene. She is the author or co-author of many books, including Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables, written with chef Joshua McFadden, out this season from Artisan.
Learn by doing in this hands-on production workshop on whole grain enriched and laminated dough using only 100% whole grain flour. Participants will be guided through the preparation and make up of a variety of items that will be baked the following morning to serve to all attendees. Finished items will likely include plain and chocolate croissant, morning buns, seasonal fruit and savory brioche tarts, and more! Please note that the baking will be done the following morning; participation in the bakeoff will be optional.
Jeff Yankellow
Jeff manages Bakery Flour Sales for King Arthur Flour in the western region. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Bread Bakers Guild of America. He was part of Team USA that captured gold in Paris at the Coupe du monde de la Boulangerie in 2005. He brings a wide array of experience that includes cooking, artisan baking, consulting, and teaching.
Dawn Woodward
Dawn and her husband co-own Evelyn’s Crackers, based in Ontario, Canada. They come from the worlds of professional baking, restaurants, catering, home cooking, and teaching. They believe in the local, organic and good-farming movements. And by applying artisan bread traditions and using nutritionally rich heritage grains such as Red Fife wheat, spelt, rye, and buckwheat, they showcase this simple idea in an approachable way – with a cracker. In 2008, named after their young daughter, Evelyn’s Crackers were born. In 2016, Dawn was the keynote speaker at the Grain Gathering.
Ramen aficionados, here is a chance to make your own springy ramen at home. Sayonara to Cup Ramen! In this workshop, Sonoko Sakai will teach you how to make ramen noodles, using a blend of rye, wheat and spelt flours. Sonoko will prepare a umami rich ramen soup made with pork neck bones, chicken backs and dashi stock. Yakibuta pork belly, marinated eggs, greens and herbs will be used for toppings.
Sonoko will be talking about the culture of ramen in Japan, which has evolved into one of the most popular fast foods in the world. You will also learn about the various kinds of ramen by region and why most people in Japan don’t attempt to make them at home. She will be assisted by Sharon Alpert and Mutsuko Soma.
Sonoko Sakai
Sonoko is a Los Angeles based Japanese cooking teacher and noodle maker, with an obsession for soba noodles. She is the author of Rice Craft (Chronicle Books) and The Poetical Pursuit of Food: Japanese Recipes for American Cooks (Potter). Her stories and recipes have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Saveur and Lucky Peach. She is currently working on her third cookbook on Japanese home cooking which will be published by Roost Books in 2019.
Ston’d Milling: from Harvest to Furrow. This workshop on milling is divided into 6 sessions, each focusing on a separate aspect of milling. Participants may choose to attend one or all of the sessions.
Graison Gill
Jim Williams
Jim co-owns Seven Stars Bakery in Providence, Rhode Island with his wife, Lynn. Seven Stars Bakery operates three retail bakery cafes in the Providence area.
Jim’s passion for whole grain breads led to the purchase of a stone mill in 2014. His side project, Backdoor Bread, focuses on single variety, whole grain , stone milled, naturally leavened, hand mixed breads available weekly.
Andrew Heyn and Blair Marvin
Andrew and Blair are a husband and wife team who have been baking bread together since 2004. Elmore Mountain Bread is a wood-fired bakery, stone ground flour mill and millwright located in Elmore, Vermont. Their breads are made entirely with organic and regionally sourced wheat and specialty grains, all of which are ground into flour on their stone mill and baked in a custom wood-fired oven. They also recently started New American Stone Mills which builds natural granite stone mills for bakers.
What are heirloom grains and what’s so special about them anyway? Are they really more flavorful and healthy than modern varieties? Come hear a grain historian, farmer, and baker discuss the pros and cons of heirloom grains and answer any questions you might have about historical wheat varieties. This panel discussion will take place in the field in front of nearly 200 historical spring wheat varieties so bring your cameras, sunscreen and lots of questions for this entertaining and informative session.
Steve Lyon
As a senior scientific assistant, Steve leads the greenhouse and field research portion of the Plant Breeding Program at Washington State University-Mount Vernon. Steve was a commercial grain and livestock producer in Eastern Washington for twelve years and has worked the past twenty-two years developing wheat varieties for Washington State University. In 2007 he was awarded the O.A. Vogel/Washington State Crop Improvement Award and in 2013 earned one of the highest honors in his profession by having a new grain named in his honor, Lyon Barley.
Josey Baker
Josey Baker Bread started out in Josey’s San Francisco Mission apartment back in the Summer of 2010, but today JBB is a small team of bread bakers who specialize in whole grain sourdough bread. We work out of The Mill, the cafe/bakery collaboration with Four Barrel Coffee we opened in February 2012. JBB mills all of their whole grain flours in the bakery daily, and use these stone ground whole grain flours to bake about 420 loaves/day, 360 days/year.
Josey was born in New York, raised in Vermont, and moved to San Francisco in 2005. He was gifted a sourdough starter in 2010 from his childhood friend George, baked his first loaf a few days later, and the rest is… Well, time will tell what the rest of this crazy adventure is. As legend would have it, Josey started baking so much bread that he couldn’t eat it, couldn’t store it in his freezer, he had to start giving it away. Then one day a friend of his offered him some cash for this gift, and the lightbulb went on… On Thanksgiving morning 60 strangers showed up at Josey’s door to buy loaves of bread. A few months later Josey quit his day job and started baking full time, renting space from local pie bakery Mission Pie, and using the wood-fired oven at Oakland’s Pizzaiolo to sell bread to his customers through his Community Supported Bread (CSB) program. That Summer he teamed up with Four Barrel Coffee to build a cafe/bakery, and in February of 2012 The Mill was born.
Dan Abbott
Born and raised on a large farm in Alberta, Dan Abbott comes from six
generations of subsequent farmers. His grandparents left Nebraska to
take out a homestead, known as a “ten dollar” bet, near Edmonton,
Alberta in the early 1900’s. The family farm is now farmed by the 4th
generation. In his youth, many summer days were spent summer-fallowing
fields when the prevailing thought was to give the land a rest every
third year.
After working away and spending dual careers with the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police as a policeman and Morgan Stanley as a
financial advisor, he wanted to get back to farming in 2002 and
acquired a 10 acre oceanfront piece of property in the Sequim Valley.
He subsequently built and established the George Washington Inn, an
acclaimed B&B inn, and the Washington Lavender Farm, that hosts the
Washington Lavender Festival and the Northwest Colonial Festival as
agritourism efforts. His interest in heritage grains grew with the
colonial connection after a visit to George Washington’s Mount Vernon
farm.
In 2016, he grew test plots of 6 heritage varieties of grain and
this year has collaborated with The Bread Lab in growing 14 heritage
varieties. Guests at his inn may enjoy some of these grains now at
breakfast. His dreams include seeing a working grist mill on his
property where the process of seeing grain from ground to table can be
enjoyed by all.
Richard Scheuerman
Dr. Richard Scheuerman was raised on a farm between the rural Palouse Country communities of Endicott and St. John, Washington. After a twenty-five year career as teacher and administrator in Washington public schools, he began teaching and writing at Seattle Pacific University’s Graduate School of Education, and is co-founder of Palouse Colony Farm which raises landrace grains. Scheuerman holds degrees in history, Russian, and education and has written several books and articles on regional themes including The Volga Germans: Pioneers of the Pacific Northwest and Finding Chief Kamiakin, recent finalist for Washington Non-fiction Book of the Year. His most recent book, Harvest Heritage: Agricultural Origins and Heirloom Grains of the Pacific Northwest, was published in 2014 by WSU Press, and he is now at work on a companion volume, Hallowed Harvests: Reapers and Gleaners in Western Literature and the Fine Arts. Scheuerman is a recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education and the Robert Gray Medal for contributions to historical scholarship.
Mentoring Bakers: Developing a North American Baker Exchange Program to Foster Growth and Expand Product Lines
Jeffrey Hamelman will lead a discussion on the topic of developing an exchange program consisting of about two dozen bakeries, each sending and receiving bakers to and from other bakeries for short term stages. The goals are to elevate the skills of the visiting bakers, further the camaraderie among bakers, and “cross pollinate” bakeries with new ideas, new products, new insights and inspirations. Anyone can attend the discussion, and it’s hoped that bakery owners, managers and bakers at all levels will be in attendance.
Jeffrey Hamelman
Jeffrey began baking professionally at 6AM Wednesday, September 1, 1976 and it has been his livelihood ever since. He has baked and taught in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and Africa. In 1998 he became the 76th Certified Master Baker in the U.S. Hamelman is the author of Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes.
Graison Gill
This will be an informal walking tour of the thousands of wheat varieties grown at the Washington State University-Mount Vernon Research Center. You will learn “the rest of the story” as you view everything from heritage wheats to current commercial varieties and new experimental lines. Learn what makes a “good” variety and try your hand at selecting the perfect wheat for your area. Scientific facts combined with amusing anecdotes and historical observations make this tour an annual favorite.
Steve Lyon
As a senior scientific assistant, Steve leads the greenhouse and field research portion of the Plant Breeding Program at Washington State University-Mount Vernon. Steve was a commercial grain and livestock producer in Eastern Washington for twelve years and has worked the past twenty-two years developing wheat varieties for Washington State University. In 2007 he was awarded the O.A. Vogel/Washington State Crop Improvement Award and in 2013 earned one of the highest honors in his profession by having a new grain named in his honor, Lyon Barley.
Exploring Grain Flavor: Intro to Sensory Evaluation and Whole Grain Bread Tasting.
Learn the basics of sensory evaluation, including developing descriptive terminology and flavor mapping methods, to characterize sensory attributes of whole grain breads. Then put your skills to work in a tasting of whole grain breads baked by George de Pasquale of The Essential Baking Company.
George DePasquale, Lifetime Artisan Baker
George is a founder, owner, and the Head Baker at The Essential Baking Company.
An Italian-American native of New York, George grew up in an Italian neighborhood on Long Island where his father worked as a barber. Fresh bread was easily found at the Italian bakery around the corner when his mother was not baking fresh bread at home.
George traveled to California where he started his baking career at the age of 20. George continued to work as a baker in San Francisco (while simultaneously pursuing his music career as an electric bass player). He moved to Seattle, and in 1994 launched The Essential Baking Company with his signature rustic breads.
George is most often found at The Essential Baking Company, pulling fresh baked loaves from the oven or forming dough alongside his highly skilled team of bakers. George teaches baking classes at local cooking schools and is a member of the Bread Baker’s Guild of America.
Louisa Hays
Louisa began her career working in the food industry in restaurants and farmer’s markets. She developed a specific interest in Dairy Science while obtaining a BS in Food Microbiology from UC Davis. She went on to work as a cheesemaker and eventually went back to school to receive a MS in Food Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. She wrote her Master’s thesis on ice cream! Since then she has done nutrition research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has worked as a product developer for Starbucks and is currently the Manager of Food Quality and Regulatory Programs at The Essential Baking Company. Louisa is fascinated by baking and is always learning through her current role. She is particularly passionate about applying her food science background to sensory studies of bread and grains.
Graison Gill
The Bread Lab partners with amazing producers who are using the flavorsome grains and crops grown in the Skagit Valley. Enjoy Westland Distillery, Fremont Brewing, The Pike Brewing Company, Chuckanut Brewery, Skagit Valley Malting, Beecher’s Cheese, and Breadfarm crackers.
Paella and Salad by Paella Works; Bread from Breadfarm; Theo’s Milk Salted Almond Chocolate Bars.
Sound Food Uprising: The story behind the ten year campaign to change how Puget Sound eats for good.
Kurt Beecher Dammeier
A fourth generation Puget Sound native, Kurt joined the food community in 1999 by forming Sugar Mountain, a family of food businesses including Beecher’s Handmade Cheese in Seattle and New York City, South Lake Union Steakhouse, and The Butcher’s Table.
Sunrise walk in the wheat, buckwheat and barley research fields at the WSU Mount Vernon Research Center.
Stephen Jones
Stephen is a wheat breeder and the Director of the Washington State University Bread Lab. Stephen has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Davis. His first wheat crop was on five acres at Chico State University’s student farm in 1977. Together with Bread Lab staff and graduate students he breeds wheat and other grains for local uses to be grown on small farms in the coastal west and other underserved regions. In the Bread Lab they experiment with improved flavor, nutrition, functionality, and accessibility of regional and obscure wheats.
Whole Grain Pastries provided by the Lamination Worksop; Chuckanut Crunch Granola; Fresh Fruit; Muesli sample with freshly milled oats and local fruits from Wolfgang Mock.
Stephen Jones
Stephen is a wheat breeder and the Director of the Washington State University Bread Lab. Stephen has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Davis. His first wheat crop was on five acres at Chico State University’s student farm in 1977. Together with Bread Lab staff and graduate students he breeds wheat and other grains for local uses to be grown on small farms in the coastal west and other underserved regions. In the Bread Lab they experiment with improved flavor, nutrition, functionality, and accessibility of regional and obscure wheats.
| Dr. James C. Scott
James is the Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology and is co-Director of the Agrarian Studies Program. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. His research concerns political economy, comparative agrarian societies, theories of hegemony and resistance, peasant politics, revolution, Southeast Asia, theories of class relations and anarchism. His publications include The Moral Economy of the Peasant, Yale University Press, 1976, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Yale Press, 1985, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Yale Press 1980,Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale Press, 1998; The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, Yale University Press, 2008, and Two Cheers for Anarchism, Princeton University Press, 2013 and Against the Grain: Plants, Animals, Microbes, Captives, Barbarians and a New Story of Civilization, Forthcoming, Yale Press 2017) He is a mediocre sheep breeder and bee-keeper in Connecticut. |
Grand Central Bakery bakers Mel Darbyshire, Laura Ohm, Kelly DeLucco and Gina Langley discuss how to support your local grain economy through delicious, cost-effective products. They will explore different flour flavor profiles, pairings, and wheat varietals, and feature different flours in pie dough. Participants will hand-mix 2-3 batches of pie dough that they can keep and take home. Participants will also become a production team, making multiple individual fruit handpies for Friday’s dinner.
Mel Darbyshire, Head Baker, Grand Central Bakery
A native of England by way of Iowa, Mel Darbyshire started her baking career in Portland with Grand Central Bakery and quickly moved through the ranks to become head baker for its Multnomah location in 1997. After a stint in Seattle at Macrina Bakery as head baker, she returned to Grand Central Portland where she spent 10 years developing delicious breads, building hearth ovens and masterminding the highly technical switch from mass-market flour to locally produced Shepherd’s Grain and Camas Country Mill flours. Today Mel is at the helm at Grand Central’s Seattle and Portland production facilities and serves on the Bread Lab Advisory Board. She spends time researching formulas that use local grains in order to advance the understanding and support of the regional grain economy. In her free time you will find Mel cruising Alki on her long board, walking her Dachshunds and dreaming of delicious food to pair with Northwest beers.
Laura Ohm, Product Director, Grand Central Bakery
Laura Ohm joined Grand Central Bakery in 1998. A graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, her early cooking and baking career took her from Vermont to North Carolina to California, and finally Portland, OR. After studying viennoiserie at The National Baking Center, Laura helped launch the Grand Central Commissary, which produces buttery croissants, flaky pie dough, and soups rich with local, seasonal produce. As Product Director, Laura is responsible for making sure all Grand Central bread, pastry and cuisine supports our mission of serving our customers delicious, authentic food made from high-quality local and sustainable ingredients, while growing a healthy, values-driven business. When she’s not in the kitchen at work or home, you’ll probably find her climbing a steep pitch on her bike, watching a Packers game or running Portland’s trails with her two Australian shepherds.
Kelly DeLucco, Portland Production Manager, Grand Central Bakery
My baking career began in 2008 where I studied Pastry and Specialty Baking at South Seattle Community College in Seattle, Washington. I got my start in pastry, working for Macrina Bakery in Seattle. When I moved to Portland in 2010 I had my first chance to work exclusively with bread and my love for bread exploded. Over the next 4 years as life would have it, I moved back and forth between the two cities a few times, finally settling in Portland while growing my career and passion along the way. I’ve had the opportunity to work for some amazing high volume bread production facilities including Tom Douglas Restaurants in Seattle, New Seasons Market and Grand Central Bakery. I find working with the changing variables and chemistry behind producing a loaf of bread to be a welcoming challenge; specifically working with whole grains and sourdoughs. Although my heart lies with bread, I miss all things pastry and am continually seeking opportunities to keep a hand in it. I love to make and decorate cakes, especially wedding cakes for friends and relatives!
Gina Langley
Gina Langley, Grand Central’s pastry manager, fell in love with baking while falling in love with her partner Dean. The couple moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 2003 and it was during that time Gina decided to turn her passion into a career. Once settled in Portland she began to research local bakeries and was drawn into the flavors, dedication to sustainability, warmth and family of Grand Central Bakery. Gina quickly moved through the ranks to become pastry manager whose main focus is to develop skilled and passionate bakers with a mission to create the highest quality and most delicious products within the parameters of Grand Central’s mission. Gina is an avid baker, cook, canner, jammer and pickler who loves to scour the neighborhoods and farmers markets for seasonal produce to feed friends. She also enjoys riding motorcycles and restoring 70’s custom boogie vans with her van club.
This is a production workshop that will begin with rye bread and add a later session devoted to miche.
Scott Mangold
Scott is co-owner of Breadfarm in Edison, WA with his wife Renee Bourgault.
Ryan Moore
Ryan Moore has been baking naturally leavened breads for over 12 years and has trained and worked with some great bakers including, Keith Guisto, Leslie Mackie, Didier Rosada, and Nicky Guisto. Recently, Ryan has taken bread baking to the next level. Joining the Camas Country Mill family, Ryan lives on the farm, watching the wheat grow, working at the mill, and baking breads in a wood fired oven. For the past year, Ryan has been working exclusively with Camas Country Mill flours, and has learned a great deal about working with whole grains and freshly milled, whole grain flours. Being so close to the farm and mill, Ryan has the opportunity to continuously experiment, learn and play with new varieties of grains.
Bob Klein
After a successful, 30-year career in communications, Bob went on to open renowned farm-to-table restaurant, Oliveto, bridging the gap between his community and the source of their food. Community Grains grew out of his curiosity and deep relationships with farmers and leaders in the food movement.
Sonoko Sakai
Sonoko is a Los Angeles-based Japanese cooking teacher and noodle maker with an obsession for soba noodles. She is the author of Rice Craft and The Poetical Pursuit of Food: Japanese Recipes for American Cooks.
Tom Hunton
Tom Hunton co-owns Camas Country Mills and Bakery and Northwest Mills here in Burlington, Washington.
Local Wheat: Milling and Baking
Blair Marvin
Blair is is half of the husband and wife team who have been baking bread together since 2004 at Elmore Mountain Bread, a wood-fired bakery, stone ground flour mill and millwright located in Elmore, Vermont. Their breads are made entirely with organic and regionally sourced wheat and specialty grains, all of which are ground into flour on their stone mill and baked in a custom wood-fired oven. They also recently started New American Stone Mills which builds natural granite stone mills for bakers.
Jim Williams
Jim Williams is co-owner of Seven Stars Bakeries in Providence, Rhode Island.
A description from a Bee Girl Honey jar reads “This honey drips onto your palate like the morning sun dappling through a lace curtain onto an overstuffed down comforter. Next, it moves you to the lakeshore, where you suck on butterscotch candies while the sunrays glint off the water surface. The finish is hot and sweet, like a confection straight from the oven.” Did you know that honey was capable of so many flavors and images? Did you also know that one bee will only produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime? Join this workshop to learn more about the wondrous world of honey, the bees that make it, and which bread goes best with the honey described above!
Sarah Red-Laird
Sarah is the founder and Executive Director of the Bee Girl organization, a nonprofit with a mission to educate and inspire communities to conserve bees, their flowers, and our food system. She is a graduate of the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation with a degree in Resource Conservation, focused on community collaboration and environmental policy. Aside from running the Bee Girl organization’s programs, Sarah is the Kids and Bees Director for the American Beekeeping Federation, is an active member of the Northwest Farmers Union, the Western Apicultural Society’s Oregon Director, the Regional Representative for the Southern Oregon Beekeepers Association, and a brand ambeesador for Mountainsmith. When she is not tirelessly working with bees, beekeepers, kids, farmers, land managers, and policy makers, Sarah heads for the hills with a camera, backpack, and her best friend, Sophie the Yellow Lab.
WHOLEGRAIN COOKIE JAR
Renée Bourgault
Renée and her husband Scott Mangold opened Breadfarm in July 2003 on the fertile flats of the Skagit Valley, Washington in the rural community of Edison. Breadfarm strives to build community by using ingredients from farmers and producers in the region to craft food that is both delicious and good for people’s health. A baker-by-marriage, she oversee’s the pastry department as a complement to Scott’s naturally leavened loaves. With a newly installed flour mill at their bakery, incorporating whole grains into their existing formulas has been a focus. To make something good even better requires sourcing high quality ingredients and finding subtle nuances of flavor.
Mark Doxtader makes his beloved and annually anticipated wholegrain bagels for Saturday morning breakfast at the Grain Gathering. If you’d like to master the art of rolling a bagel by hand, join Mark and others in this demo and get-the-job-done session.
Mark Doxtader
Mark is the owner of Tastebud in Portland, Oregon. He writes:
Once, we were a farm. Then, we built an oven. We started baking bread, bagels and pizza in the open-air markets of Portland. We baked in dark winter mornings and through long hot summer days. We began to travel near and far pulling our wood fired oven. Then we built a big red truck with wings to shelter us from the rain and sun. Now we have a place in Multnomah Village to call home.
Tastebud began in 1999 under the creative vision and hands of Mark Doxtader. But like most good things, Tastebud is built on a community of friends, family and farmers.
The Farm Bill: a 101 overview of what the bill is and how the process works, and why it matters to farmers, food companies, and eaters – and public sector educators and researchers.
Matthew Dillon
Matthew Dillon is director of agricultural policy and programs at Clif Bar & Company, a leading maker of nutritious and organic foods and drink for people on-the-go. Guided by five bottom lines – Sustaining our Business, our Brands, our People, our Community and the Planet – Matthew works with state and federal officials, academia, ingredient suppliers, farmers within Clif agriculture supply chain and the organic industry to improve the success of organic producers and the rural communities in which they operate.
Raised in an agricultural family and community in Nebraska, Matthew has held diverse roles in the organic agriculture field since 1982, including farmer, non-profit advocate and consultant to organic food companies.
Prior to joining Clif Bar, he founded Organic Seed Alliance where he launched the nation’s first organic plant breeding programs. In 2012 he was appointed to serve on the National Genetic Resource Advisory Council, advising the Secretary of Agriculture on strategies for maintaining agricultural crop diversity. In 2016 he was honored by GOOD Magazine as one of the GOOD 100, an award recognizing 100 people who are improving our world in creative and innovative ways.
When not at work, Matthew can be found at home in Oakland, California with his wife, where he enjoys hiking and playing competitive poker.
Northwest Mills supplies artisan bakers, pastry makers, chefs, pizza makers and industry professionals with flours, freshly ground from identity-preserved grains that are grown, harvested and milled locally for superior flavors, nutrition profiles and baking properties.
Our unique milling system was designed in Denmark and scaled to serve a region. We specialize in European style bread flours and personally know all the farmers that grow our grain. By building trusted relationships and championing sustainable business practices that add value to the land, the food and the people, Northwest Mills creates a new model for regional food economies.
Northwest mills is an independently owned Social Purpose Corporation and the core values of clean food, good stewardship of the earth and revitalizing regional food systems are our compass. The founders are Kevin Morse and Tom and Sue Hunton (Camas Country Mill) and investors include Patagonia’s Tin Shed Investments, King Arthur Flour, Salish Growth, local farmers and social impact investors from the region.
Tacos and Quesadillas by Patty Pan Catering.
Nathan Myhrvold
Nathan Myhrvold is founder of Modernist Cuisine and lead author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking , Modernist Cuisine at Home , The Photography of Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread, on-sale November 7, 2017. Unlike any bread book ever published, the five-volume book will provide a comprehensive look at the history, techniques, ingredients, and equipment used to create yeast-leavened bread around the world. Myhrvold, both a chef and scientist, along with his team of bakers and researchers have conducted over 1,500 experiments to test longstanding practices and beliefs. The result is over 1,200 recipes that use new ingredients, techniques, and insight for baking bread in home and professional ovens.
Myhrvold holds several degrees including a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics and master’s degrees in geophysics and space physics from Princeton University, a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from UCLA, and a culinary diploma from École de Cuisine La Varenne in France.
In this workshop we will bake bread in a mobile wood-fired oven. We will talk about techniques to fire the oven safely and effectively, how to load efficiently, generate ample steam, and how to organize your bread production and bake schedule to work with the falling heat curve of this style of oven.
Andrew Heyn and Blair Marvin
Andrew and Blair are a husband and wife team who have been baking bread together since 2004. Elmore Mountain Bread is a woo-fired bakery, stone ground flour mill and millwright located in Elmore, Vermont. Their breads are made entirely with organic and regionally sourced wheat and specialty grains, all of which are ground into flour on their stone mill and baked in a custom wood-fired oven. They also recently started New American Stone Mills which builds natural granite stone mills for bakers.
Jeremiah Church
Jeremiah learned the craft of wood-fired oven building in Vermont while working with Turtlerock Masonry Heat. Now based in Oregon, he continues to build commercial wood-fired ovens and masonry heaters. He is inspired by and grateful to the wide community of farmers, masons, millers, and bakers and their dedication to craft.
Tossing a handful of whole grain flour into a standard bread recipe is an easy way to work some new flavors into your loaves, but there’s so much more potential!! In this workshop we will share a variety of methods we’ve been exploring to work whole grains into breads that unleash the grains’ full potential. Whether we’re sprouting rye berries, cracking and toasting corn kernels, flaking einkorn and cooking it into a porridge, or grinding Sonora wheat into flour, every grain has something valuable to say, and it’s our job as bakers to listen.
Josey Baker
Josey Baker Bread started out in Josey’s San Francisco Mission apartment back in the Summer of 2010, but today JBB is a small team of bread bakers who specialize in whole grain sourdough bread. We work out of The Mill, the cafe/bakery collaboration with Four Barrel Coffee we opened in February 2012. JBB mills all of their whole grain flours in the bakery daily, and use these stone ground whole grain flours to bake about 400 loaves/day, 360 days/year. You can find our loaves at The Mill, and a select handful of markets and restaurants around San Francisco and the East Bay.
Josey was born in New York, raised in Vermont, and moved to San Francisco in 2005. He was gifted a sourdough starter in 2010 from his childhood friend George, baked his first loaf a few days later, and the rest is… Well, time will tell what the rest of this crazy adventure is. As legend would have it, Josey started baking so much bread that he couldn’t eat it, couldn’t store it in his freezer, he had to start giving it away. Then one day a friend of his offered him some cash for this gift, and the lightbulb went on. On Thanksgiving morning 60 strangers showed up at Josey’s door to buy loaves of bread. A few months later Josey quit his day job and started baking full time, renting space from local pie bakery Mission Pie, and using the wood-fired oven at Oakland’s Pizzaiolo to sell bread to his customers through his Community Supported Bread (CSB) program. That Summer he teamed up with Four Barrel Coffee to build a cafe/bakery, and in Feburary of 2012 The Mill was born.
Explore how three bakers manage fresh milled flour using different approaches to interpret three classic products including blitz puff pastry, naturally leavened hearth bread, and baguettes.
Jeffrey Hamelman
Jeffrey began baking professionally at 6AM Wednesday, September 1, 1976 and it has been his livelihood ever since. He has baked and taught in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and Africa. In 1998 he became the 76th Certified Master Baker in the U.S. Hamelman is the author of Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes.
Jeff Yankellow
Jeff manages Bakery Flour Sales for King Arthur Flour in the western region. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Bread Bakers Guild of America. He was part of Team USA that captured gold in Paris at the Coupe du monde de la Boulangerie in 2005. He brings a wide array of experience that includes cooking, artisan baking, consulting, and teaching.
Martin Philip
Martin will demo freshly-milled, high-extraction baguettes using locally-sourced grain.
Martin is the head bread baker at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont. He holds a degree from Oberlin Conservatory, is a MacDowell fellow, and attended the New York Art Students League for drawing. His book “Breaking Bread: A baker’s journey home in 75 recipes” will be published in the fall by HarperCollins. He lives in Vermont with his wife Julie Ness and their three children.
You Can Learn It! Tsampa.
Come participate in an engaging workshop on Tsampa (‘sahm-pa’) – a beloved, Himalayan staple food made from sprouted and roasted mountain barley. Co-founder and CEO of Sherpa Foods, Renzin Yuthok and his aunt Namlha will be demonstrating how to make traditional Pa (tsampa pressed cake) made with puerh tea, butter, salt, and Tibetan cheese, which you will get to taste and enjoy. Learn about the rich cultural history of tsampa, traditions, nutritional benefits, and properties.
Maria Trumpler
Maria received her PhD from Yale in History of Medicine and Life Science in 1992. Her interests include gender and science, feminist critiques of science, scientific studies of sexuality, and food studies. She has taught at Yale, Middlebury and Harvard, and currently teaches a lecture course on “Women, Food and Culture” and a first year seminar on “History of Sexuality.” She also serves as Director of Yale’s new Office of LGBTQ Resources.
Pablo will introduce “yeast water” and the advantages of using yeast water for natural fermentation. He will describe how to produce yeast water for baking bread using freshly milled flour. He will also cover autolyse techniques and the advantages of the no-knead concept in this baking constellation.
Pablo Giet
Pablo is a German-American baker, qualified officially in Germany and by experience in both countries.
His first training as a baker began in 2002; after graduation from baking college (Bäckergeselle) in 2014 he managed bakeries in California and Florida. He returned to Germany in 2016 where he began giving baking seminars in parallel to his certification training for the title of Master Baker, which he earned in December 2016.
Since then, he has been Head of Baking R&D and Baking Consultant at Wolfgang Mock GmbH, where since early 2016 he has explored on a practical and theoretical basis the endless possibilities of baking with exclusively whole grain, 100% extraction, freshly milled flours.
Explore beer and beer making from grain to glass. Get an overview (and maybe a taste) of the brewing process, the four ingredients, different beer styles and the innovations happening in Washington Sate and specifically in the northwest region.
Bryan Krueger
Bryan is a co-developer and faculty member of the Skagit Valley College Craft Brewing Academy as well as the Director of Quality at Boundary Bay Brewery. Bryan is a certified Cicerone and co-founder of the Bellingham Brewers Guild. He has a Master of Teaching from Westminster College and a BS in Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College.
Graison Gill
Up your cracker game with single varietal whole grains and add-ins, such as: malted barley, Red Fife wheat bran, sourdough and dried fruit. We will make four different whole grain crackers, sweet and savory.
Dawn Woodward
Dawn and her husband co-own Evelyn’s Crackers, based in Ontario, Canada. They come from the worlds of professional baking, restaurants, catering, home cooking, and teaching. They believe in the local, organic and good-farming movements. And by applying artisan bread traditions and using nutritionally rich heritage grains such as Red Fife wheat, spelt, rye, and buckwheat, they showcase this simple idea in an approachable way – with a cracker. In 2008, named after their young daughter, Evelyn’s Crackers were born. In 2016, Dawn was the keynote speaker at the Grain Gathering.
Join Scott and Renée of Breadfarm in this informal panel discussing growth of their business and their quest to balance quality of life with work demands. Amidst an attempt to downsize, they find themselves making decisions to focus on quality over volume, significantly switching their business model and incorporating a flour mill into their space.
Renée Bourgault & Scott Mangold
Renée and her husband Scott Mangold opened Breadfarm in July 2003 on the fertile flats of the Skagit Valley, Washington in the rural community of Edison. Breadfarm strives to build community by using ingredients from farmers and producers in the region to craft food that is both delicious and good for people’s health. A baker-by-marriage, she oversee’s the pastry department as a complement to Scott’s naturally leavened loaves. With a newly installed flour mill at their bakery, incorporating whole grains into their existing formulas has been a focus. To make something good even better requires sourcing high quality ingredients and finding subtle nuances of flavor.
The Skagit Valley is famous for the richness of its soil and the diversity of its farms and farm products. During this social hour we will sample beverages and cheese and crackers made by regional producers including products from Anacortes Brewery, Flyers Brewery, Finnriver Cidery, Farmstrong Brewing Company, North Sound Brewing Company, Westland Distillery, Crackers (Cracker Workshop), and Samish Bay Cheese.
Wood-Fired Pizza and Green Salad by Tastebud; Hand Pies (Grand Central Bakery Workshop)
Sample some of Chuckanut Brewery ‘s nationally-renowned beers at Chuckanut Brewery’s South Nut made with Skagit Valley Malt using barley and wheat grown just down the road from the brewery.
Chuckanut Brewery
Will and Mari Kemper, owners of award winning Chuckanut Brewery known for its European style beer and located both in Bellingham & at the Port of Skagit, are hosting a tasting at their new Chuckanut facility near the WSU bread lab and Skagit Valley Malting. All participants in the Grain Gathering are welcome to attend the reception at their new facility at 11937 Higgins Airport Way, Burlington, WA 98233.
Skagit Valley Malting: A New Era of Brewing
With our precise, adjustable malt equipment we are ushering in a new, modernized era of malt. Our equipment can customize every phase of the malting process to develop the best characteristics of the grain. That means we can adapt the process to any kind of grain varietal. From grain handling and growing to cleaning, steeping, germinating and kilning, we adjust our process to the grain, which allows us to introduce both new and long-forgotten flavors into the craft of brewing, distilling, and baking.
Sunrise field walk in the wheat, buckwheat and barley research fields.
Stephen Jones
Stephen is a wheat breeder and the Director of the Washington State University Bread Lab. Stephen has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Davis. His first wheat crop was on five acres at Chico State University’s student farm in 1977. Together with Bread Lab staff and graduate students he breeds wheat and other grains for local uses to be grown on small farms in the coastal west and other underserved regions. In the Bread Lab they experiment with improved flavor, nutrition, functionality, and accessibility of regional and obscure wheats.
Join Scott Mangold, owner of Breadfarm, and Ryan Moore, miller/baker at Camas Country Mill, in making some large loaves of bread. In this hands-on setting, we will mix, ferment, shape and bake Miche with spent grain and local beer (in the bread). Whole Wheat Market ‘Boulot’, and 100% Rye. We will mix and shape the loaves during the first day’s session and bake the following morning.
Learn how to handle wieldy pieces of dough, gain experience using locally grown/milled, whole grain flours, share your experiences and enjoy the camaraderie amidst a group baking bread.
Make more with less. We’ll also discuss the ease of production and other added values of going large for the baker at home and in the bakeshop-small or large.
*hands on space is limited but everyone is welcome to observe.
Scott Mangold
Scott has been a Northwest artisan baker since 1997. In 2003, Scott and his wife, Renée Bourgault, opened Breadfarm on the fertile flats of Skagit Valley, Washington in the rural community of Edison. The intention of the bakery is to build community by using ingredients from farmers and producers in the region to craft food that is both delicious and good for people’s health.
Scott enjoys all the intricacies of natural fermentation: the chemistry, the challenge, the depth of flavor, the dough responding to weather and flour changes, responding to one’s touch. He values the digestive and nutritional benefits of using levain. Now, amidst a significant resurgence in locally grown, bread worthy grains, and armed with a brand new, custom built stone mill, Scott is transitioning the bakery’s flours to use these grains, freshly milled, to produce loaves and pastries packed full of goodness.
It’s become a tradition. Mark Doxtader’s incredibly delicious wholegrain bagels warm from the wood-fired oven, with a dizzying array of accoutrements.
Mark Doxtader
Mark is the owner of Tastebud in Portland, Oregon. He writes:
Once, we were a farm. Then, we built an oven. We started baking bread, bagels and pizza in the open-air markets of Portland. We baked in dark winter mornings and through long hot summer days. We began to travel near and far pulling our wood fired oven. Then we built a big red truck with wings to shelter us from the rain and sun. Now we have a place in Multnomah Village to call home.
Tastebud began in 1999 under the creative vision and hands of Mark Doxtader. But like most good things, Tastebud is built on a community of friends, family and farmers.
Congresswoman Suzan DelBene
Coongresswoman DelBene represents Washington’s First Congressional District, which spans from northeast King County to the Canadian border, and includes more than 3,000 farms throughout parts of King, Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties.
First sworn into the House of Representatives on Nov. 13, 2012, Suzan brings a unique voice to the nation’s capital, with more than two decades of experience as a successful technology entrepreneur and business leader. Suzan takes on a wide range of challenges both in Congress and in the First District and is a leader on issues of technology, health and agriculture.
As a former member of the House Committee on Agriculture, Suzan played a leading role in crafting the 2014 Farm Bill, which included unprecedented increases in funding for research and programs that support Washington state’s specialty crop growers and organic farms and critical funding for conservation and alternative energy programs. She was also able to secure $200 million to expand job-training opportunities for those relying on nutrition assistance, including $22 million for Washington.
Suzan currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Budget Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax and trade policies as well as funding for rural programs – all critical issues to our nation’s farmers.
Stephen Jones
Stephen is a wheat breeder and the Director of the Washington State University Bread Lab. Stephen has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Davis. His first wheat crop was on five acres at Chico State University’s student farm in 1977. Together with Bread Lab staff and graduate students he breeds wheat and other grains for local uses to be grown on small farms in the coastal west and other underserved regions. In the Bread Lab they experiment with improved flavor, nutrition, functionality, and accessibility of regional and obscure wheats.
Dr. David Killilea
David Killilea is a Staff Scientist in the Nutrition & Metabolism Center at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) and Specialist at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). David is a nutritional biochemist with a particular interest in the mineral micronutrients needed for good health. Funding for David’s research has come from the National Institute of Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and HarvestPlus. David has worked with Community Grains in Oakland, CA on re-establishing a local grain economy and has been interviewed in Cook’s Science, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times on the nutritional density of whole grains.
All cultures have techniques for transforming leftover bread into delicious staples of their cuisines. Learn about preparing 2 basic breads, ciabatta (Italian slipper bread) and whole grain rusk, and the transformative dishes they often become later, such as pappa al pomodoro, American meatloaf, zucchini bread lasagne, and rye bread ice cream.
Mark Doxtader
Mark is the owner of Tastebud in Portland, Oregon. He writes:
Once, we were a farm. Then, we built an oven. We started baking bread, bagels and pizza in the open-air markets of Portland. We baked in dark winter mornings and through long hot summer days. We began to travel near and far pulling our wood fired oven. Then we built a big red truck with wings to shelter us from the rain and sun. Now we have a place in Multnomah Village to call home.
Tastebud began in 1999 under the creative vision and hands of Mark Doxtader. But like most good things, Tastebud is built on a community of friends, family and farmers.
Cathy Whims
Cathy, a six-time James Beard Award finalist, opened Nostrana with her partner David West in 2005. Prior to establishing Nostrana, she was co-owner of Portland’s pioneering Italian restaurant, Genoa. Since then, she has helped open Oven & Shaker in 2011 and has continued to be a prominent figure in Portland’s food scene. In the course of her professional career, Cathy has studied with Marcella and Victor Hazan at their home in Venice, and Madeleine Kamman at the School for American Chefs. She has cooked with Giancinto Albarello at Genoa and in his own kitchen at the Antica Torre Trattoria in Barbaresco, and with Marco Forneris at Osteria La Libera in Alba, both renowned restaurants of the Langhe. A never-ending curiosity takes Cathy to Italy often, where she continues to make new friendships and enjoy the complex flavors evoked by simple cooking.
Rethinking the grain supply chain network with business strategies, incentives, frameworks that have worked to build sustainable economic opportunity for value-added, non-commodity agriculture in other sectors.
Jesse D. Lyon, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Partner, Business Transactions Group
Chair, Food + Beverage / Agriculture Practice
Jesse Lyon
Jesse has devoted his career to the food & ag industry, having worked in the industry and earned advanced degrees in agricultural economics from Washington State University and Purdue University prior to launching his legal practice at Davis Wright Tremaine. Jesse represents a diverse array of “new school” food & ag companies throughout the West Coast, from innovative emerging companies to middle-market, family-owned businesses and established global brands. He advises clients every day about transactions involving crop production, manufacturing and supply chain relationships. In addition, Jesse structures and negotiates business mergers and acquisitions for sustainable farm operations and food companies, as well as joint ventures and other strategic agreements related to the development and commercialization of new plant varieties and the launch of new products. Some of Jesse’s noteworthy grain and baking industry transaction client work includes wheat sourcing, contract baking, and financing transactions for Dave’s Killer Bread, forming and implementing the strategic alliance between his client Hopworks Urban Brewery and Patagonia Provisions for the production and marketing of Long Roots Ale from Kernza®, and service as the outside counsel for Shepherd’s Grain.
Pre-registration required, please email: Bethany.Econopouly@wsu.edu.
Current or seriously interested professional millers and baker-millers preferred.
This event will take the form of several round table discussions that will focus on the following topics: Why small to medium milling? What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? What research needs are necessary for success? Tables will consist of 4-6 participants each, depending upon level of overall participation. Each table will discuss topics independently and then report out the main points of their discussion to the entire group. The aim of the workshop is to facilitate discussion, identify research needs, and inform the lab and research community of the opportunities and challenges start-up millers face as defined by the community itself. Time will be available for an open discussion for additional comments and questions not covered within the pre-defined topics.
Facilitated by Bethany Econopouly, PhD student in the Bread Lab, Washington State University.
A cookbook can be a wonderful testament to your craft, documenting technique, providing inspiration, and reinforcing your business brand. And every once in a blue moon, it can make you some money. Two publishing veterans will outline the basic steps of cookbook publishing, from concept through proposal to the actual production of the book, offering realistic advice and sharing useful resources. They’ll leave plenty of time for specific questions, to accommodate the interests and experience of session attendees.
Martha Holmberg
Martha is a food editor and cookbook author who lives in Portland, Oregon. She was the editor of Fine Cooking magazine for over a decade, was the food editor at The Oregonian newspaper, and founded MIX magazine, which covered the local food scene. She is the author or co-author of many books, including Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables, written with chef Joshua McFadden, out this season from Artisan.
Martin Philip
Martin is the head bread baker at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont. He holds a degree from Oberlin Conservatory, is a MacDowell fellow, and attended the New York Art Students League for drawing. His book Breaking Bread: A Baker’s Journey Home in 75 Recipes” will be published in the fall by HarperCollins. He lives in Vermont with his wife Julie Ness and their three children.
Join Melina to learn how to use Super Sprout flour in a variety of yeasted and pastry applications. From hearth loaves to laminated doughs, sprouted wheat flour packs flavor and nutrients into each delicious bite. Students will understand the processes of flour substitution, and they will walk away with new techniques for beautiful baked goods. Most of all, it will be delicious!Melina Kelson
Melina has been teaching Baking and Pastry Arts since 2005 at Kendall College in Chicago.She is a Certified Bread Baker through the BBGA, a Certified Executive Pastry Chef and a Certified Sous Chef through the ACF, a Certified Master Baker through the RBA, in her 9th year on the Board of Directors of the Bread Bakers Guild of America. She served on the Advisory Board of Growing Power, a not-for-profit that focuses on food security through sustainable agriculture, about which she feels so strongly that she converted all of her personal land to sustainable landscaping, growing the majority of her family’s food during the growing seasons. The keystone of this property is her production wood-fired oven from which she operates a micro-bakery, Bootleg Batard.
In this workshop we’ll be working with leavened and unleavened whole grain doughs, mostly wheat and spelt, and baking in the tandoor oven. It’s a lot of fun even though it can be scary at first. We’ll also explore some of the many ways of cooking and baking with beans/pulses, especially the many beans that grow in the Skagit Valley.
Naomi Duguid
Traveler, writer, photographer, Naomi Duguid is the author of the award-winning Taste of Persia: A Cook’s Travels through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran & Kurdistan and Burma: Rivers of Flavor. She is the co-author of six earlier award-winning books of food and travel, starting with the ground-breaking Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas. The others are HomeBaking; Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through South-East Asia; Mangoes & Curry Leaves, Seductions of Rice; and Beyond the Great Wall. In stories, recipes, and photographs, her books explore daily home-cooked foods in their cultural context.
Naomi has been a keynote speaker at the Grain Gathering as well as leading and assisting with a number of sessions over the years, from tandoor baking to single varietal wheat tasting to making good use of stale bread.
Dawn Woodward
Dawn and her husband co-own Evelyn’s Crackers, based in Ontario, Canada. They come from the worlds of professional baking, restaurants, catering, home cooking, and teaching. They believe in the local, organic and good-farming movements. And by applying artisan bread traditions and using nutritionally rich heritage grains such as Red Fife wheat, spelt, rye, and buckwheat, they showcase this simple idea in an approachable way – with a cracker. In 2008, named after their young daughter, Evelyn’s Crackers were born. Dawn was a keynote speaker at the 2016 Grain Gathering.
Farmers, chefs, bakers, researchers, millers, maltsters…we are all lucky enough to work with whole grains and good food on a daily basis. Access to those things and the knowledge that comes with them is not a concern. For others who live outside of those circles access is often not simple or easy. This session will discuss the realities many people with limited time and limited resources face and how those factors can impact everyday food choices. We will also discuss innovative approaches to increase awareness and access to better, more nutritious foods.
Kim Binczewski, Moderator
Kim is the Managing Director of the Bread Lab.
Cole Bitzenburg
Cole is the Community Food Access Manager for Community Action of Skagit County. He has a background in farm work, environmental history, and food banking. His work centers on facilitating hunger relief efforts in Skagit County. Beyond that he nurtures relationships with local farms to better ensure area food banks have access to high quality produce.
Sue Hunton
Diane Smith
Diane works as the WSU Regional Food Access and Health Promotion Specialist for Skagit and Whatcom County. Her passion for good food and interest in supporting an equitable food system is demonstrated in her many different projects. The Farm Fresh Food Box project matches local farmers with retailers to bring healthy local produce to the community and stimulates rural economies by providing farmers with an additional direct-marketing opportunity. The Farmer Market Flash program and CSA cost-offset projects increase food access to families with limited resources. She recently completed an elementary school garden survey to identify opportunities for getting youth outside and in the garden. Through garden-based education, youth learn about the food they eat, increase intake of fruits and vegetables which in turn helps to address the obesity concerns seen in our community today. Ms. Smith has established nutrition education programs in preschool settings, elementary schools and for older youth to provide culinary skill development and help to establish a preference for healthier food options.
Diane is an advisory member of the Population Health Trust, facilitates the 1095 Skagit Coalition to ensure that all kids are well nourished 365 days a year (3 meals x 365 = 1095), and is the lead for Skagit Food for Skagit People, an ad hoc food system working group. In Whatcom County, she is collaborating with partners to update the Whatcom Community Food Assessment.”
This session will introduce the nutritional needs for Olympic athletes and describes the work of catering food and fuel to athletes with focus on 1) carbohydrate periodization along the training and competition plan, 2) trendy gluten avoidance, and 3) the need for grain chain literacy.
Dr. Nanna Meyer
Nanna is Associate Professor in Health Sciences at the University of Colorado (UCCS). Nanna founded the UCCS Sport Nutrition Graduate Program. She has worked in Olympic sport nutrition for 20 years, supporting US athletes at 5 Olympic games, while helping to found professional sport nutrition organizations nationally and internationally.
As the world’s urgency to address climate change and health is rising, Nanna’s time is now devoted to localizing the Rocky Mountain region’s food systems with its multitude of challenges and opportunities when addressing food through health and sustainability. Between 2013 and 2014, Nanna was instrumental in helping UCCS transition its food system from corporate to self-operation, opening the doors for endless opportunities in research and education.
With a team of graduate students, Nanna links farmers to engaged eaters, using local food literacy concepts of UCCS’s Sustainability, Wellness and Learning (SWELL) initiative, Food Next Door, UCCS’s own Farm-to-Cafeteria program, and the mobile Flying Carrot Food Literacy project.
In 2016 UCCS launched Grain School in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance with the goal of regionalizing heritage grain production throughout the Western and Southwestern mountain states. Nanna integrates grain literacy in all aspects of this emerging grain chain and supports the needed infrastructures, grain research projects, and collaborations among farmers, millers, bakers, brewers, chefs and eaters through council, educational programs, photo journalism, and grant solicitations. Nanna’s personal grain chain dates back to her Swiss inheritance and the early successful ski racing career she attributes, at least in part, to the power of nutrition she gained from the unstoppable consumption of ancient and heritage grains!
Come learn how to breed your own varieties of wheat and barley! We will demonstrate how to make crosses and then allow participants some hands-on time with the plants. With this knowledge you can return home and start crossing in your backyard.
Steve Lyon
As a senior scientific assistant, Steve leads the greenhouse and field research portion of the Plant Breeding Program at Washington State University-Mount Vernon. Steve was a commercial grain and livestock producer in Eastern Washington for twelve years and has worked the past twenty-two years developing wheat varieties for Washington State University. In 2007 he was awarded the O.A. Vogel/Washington State Crop Improvement Award and in 2013 earned one of the highest honors in his profession by having a new grain named in his honor, Lyon Barley.
Brigid Meints
Brigid grew up in Corvallis, OR and developed a love for plants at a young age. She earned a BA from Scripps College in Anthropology and Gender & Women’s Studies, but found her way back to plants after graduation when she began working for the barley breeding program at Oregon State University. She earned her MS from OSU in Crop Science with a focus in Plant Breeding & Genetics. Starting in the Fall of 2014, she began working towards a PhD under the direction of Dr. Stephen Jones. Her project focuses on breeding and trialing barley and dry beans for production in northwestern Washington.
Robin Asbell has played around with whole grains in just about every category of recipe, including desserts of all kinds. But for some people accepting whole grains in familiar, decadent cakes and baked goods is a tough mental leap. That’s when we get to think outside the box, or oven, and make the flavors and textures of whole grains shine in less familiar treats. There’s a whole grain dessert for everyone to love, she promises.
Turn off your ovens and make some whole grain desserts on the stovetop, and expand your whole grain repertoire. We’ll be celebrating locally grown barley in this sweet interlude:
Streaker Barley Brittle
Tibetan Purple Barley Pudding with Fruit
Thai Style Purple Barley with Coconut and Mango
Robin Asbell
Bread (Scott Mangold and Ryan Moore’s workshop); Samish Bay Cheese; Seka Hills Olive Oil; Fresh Fruit; and Cookies (Renee Bourgault’s workshop).
TOUR OF THE EXPERIMENTAL FIELDS
Tours of the wheat, buckwheat and barley fields will be scheduled throughout the conference. Comfortable shoes and a camera are a must for this informal walking tour of the thousands of wheat varieties grown at the Washington State University-Mount Vernon Research Center. You will learn “the rest of the story” as you view everything from heritage wheats to current commercial varieties and new experimental lines. Learn what makes a “good” variety and try your hand at selecting the perfect wheat for your area. Scientific facts combined with amusing anecdotes and historical observations make this tour an annual favorite.
STEVE LYON
As a senior scientific assistant, Steve leads the greenhouse and field research portion of the Plant Breeding Program at Washington State University-Mount Vernon. Steve was a commercial grain and livestock producer in Eastern Washington for twelve years and has worked the past twenty-two years developing wheat varieties for Washington State University. In 2007 he was awarded the O.A. Vogel/Washington State Crop Improvement Award and in 2013 earned one of the highest honors in his profession by having a new grain named in his honor, Lyon Barley.
Master Gardener Docent
Tour the WSU Discovery Garden created and maintained by Skagit Country Master Gardeners. This demonstration garden contains 29 individual gardens and structures that serve as examples of gardens that you might find in your community or at your own home, such as a children’s garden, rose and fuchsia gardens, vegetable and small fruit gardens, fall and winter garden, cottage garden and herb garden, etc. Developed as a garden for community use and enjoyment as well as to enhance the quality of the environment of Skagit County, the Discover Garden also serves to interest, inspire and educate the public. Please join a Master Gardener docent as they share the beauty of these unique gardens with you on this tour.
TOM WAKE of the Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation will lead the tour. The grounds of the WSU Mount Vernon Research Center are home to experimental orchards and revival orchards and fruits. Many of the best heirloom apples, pears, and berries are flourishing with the help of the Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation, a group of dedicated volunteers. The tour will note the diversity and unique qualities of various heirloom fruits. We’ll do a little picking and tasting, too.
The tour of Northwest Mills will be led by Kevin Morse, co-owner along with Tom and Sue Hunton of Camas Country Mill.
Northwest Mills address: within easy walking distance of the Bread Lab and the dining tent.
In the late 19th century, there were nearly 160 flour mills in the state of Washington. Today you can count them on two hands with fingers left over. Specializing in organic grain grown throughout the Northwest, Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill – one of the remaining family-owned flour mills – serves discerning retailers, craft bakers, and chefs.
Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill is dedicated to the principles of good food, good farming, and good relationships.