8th Annual Asheville Artisan Bread Festival

So we are finally at the place where we expected to be (months and months ago)-- which is at the interesting realm of problem solving/tweaking that is specific to this kind of start up-- how to get the machinery running properly, determining the most efficient and effective flow, and for us right now-- how to keep flour dust from flying in our faces-- literally. But we’re at least thankful that we are actually able to make the flour dust that is flying in our face. [The reason for the dust-in-face-situation seems to have something to do with changing over from European motor to US motor and from European 50Hz frequency to US 60Hz frequency and how this boils down to RMPS which seem to be resulting in a 44% stronger ventilating current running through the machine. Ja´n our technical advisor at Osttiroler (the make of our mill) in Austria explains, the wind pulls the flour out from between the stones, cools the flour and throws the flour out, but because of our increased ventilating current, it is throwing the flour with increased velocity. The upside is that this is a solvable problem void of personality, politics, or red tape.]

While we are working on getting the kinks out of the system, bakers are gearing up for the 8th Annual Asheville Artisan Bread Festival which will take place on Saturday, March 24th. The theme of this year's festival is “Local Grain, Local Flour, and Local Bread.” Thom Leonard, a professional baker for more than 35 years, and currently a consultant for Heartland Mills, will be presenting workshops on milling and baking with local wheat. Professor Stephen Jones, a world-renowned wheat geneticist and breeder from Washington State University, will be lecturing on the local-grain movement and recent results in the breeding of organic grain and a perennial wheat.

In addition to Leonard and Jones, we will be presenting at the mill, and sharing the stage with Sharon Burns-Leader of Bread Alone Bakery, a highly esteemed bakery in New York that has made a strong commitment to using local NY-grown flour. Dr Jones will also join in the conversation with tales of folks nationwide reclaiming their local grain economy.

For more info: http://www.ashevillebreadfestival.com/

Main Street

I was in Pittsboro a couple days ago for a CFSA staff meeting. During our meeting, I wrote the words, “slow money” on my hand to remind me to contact our slow money lender as soon as I returned to Asheville to give her an update on the mill. We closed our meeting with a group lunch at Angelina’s Kitchen, http://www.angelinaskitchenonline.com/. The food was amazing—fresh, local, flavorful-- and the atmosphere felt more like a community center than a restaurant. During lunch I looked down at the words on my hand and then remembered reading about Angelina’s Kitchen in the Abundance Foundation’s website, http://slowmoneync.org/our-loans. This place had received one of NC Slow Money’s first loans. I mentioned this to our group and Angelina, who happened to be sitting one table away doing paperwork, chimed in. She said that getting a slow money loan was so much more than just getting a loan. It was building community. Her small business loan came from real people. Her lenders chose to invest in her business because she adds something to this community—and so everyone benefits. She and her husband have their business; Pittsboro gets this wonderful restaurant; and she is supporting local growers, buying their produce, meat, cheese, and even flour. And she dishes up the most delectable food.

When I told her that our mill, Carolina Ground, L3C had recently received the first Western NC Slow Money loan, she lit up. With brimming enthusiasm she told us how she had gotten rye flour that had been grown by Bobby Tucker and milled by baker Abraham Palmer of Box Turtle Bakery, http://www.boxturtlebakery.com/. And then she disappeared, swiftly reappearing with slices of apple cake made with this flour for all of us to taste. Delicious.

Yesterday I called our lender. I told her we had hoped to be milling by now, but had hit an obstacle having to do with electrical, though we’re addressing it and hope to be milling soon enough. We had planned on beginning the first payment on our slow money loan this month, as it is the first of the year. I told her I still wanted to go ahead and make our first payment. She thanked me for calling. She said it meant so much to her that I was keeping her abreast of our progress. And she said she was not attached to beginning payment in January-- that getting this mill off the ground is what matters most right now.

This is what it looks like when we move our money from Wall Street to Main Street.

a plea for an angelic electrical engineer...

We, of course, expected to at least be milling test batches of flour by now, but alas, we have hit an obstacle (after clearing a good many along the way)... something to do with amperage and voltage...the terminology continues to ring in my ears even when I sleep-- 480/600; 110/220; 208; three- phase; step down; transformer; sub-panel; bus duct..on and on... and all I really want to hear is the simple, slow rotation of our mill...

What we need-- what would be AMAZINGLY helpful-- is if there were an electrical engineer out there that would be willing to volunteer to meet with us and offer his/her opinion as to the best route to take to get the proper juice to power our mill. For the sake of good and local bread, rustic pastries, and even NC-grown malt balls, please if you are out there, email me. A couple years back a woman reached out and said if we needed help, her husband is an electrical engineer. I have scanned through both of my notebooks and cannot find her contact info. If you are out there, please contact me.

feeling ground to a pulp,

jennifer

a few more pix

the present

the past

the past

Touring the farms...

Billy Carter's Wren's Abruzzi Rye

Hofner's Thoroughbred Barley

Fred Miller TAM 303 hard wheat seedling

Billy Carter's grain bin

Kenny Haines and his field of Turkey wheat

We are scratching our heads (me, the contractor, the electrician) as to why we still do not have our CO. Evidently our electrical inspection (on friday) was red tagged because the panel was not labeled the way the inspector wanted it labeled (yes, it was labeled, and yes, our electrician has done plenty of commercial work before our job). I am confident we will extricate ourselves from the talons of the city inspectors soon and grain will be made into flour... in the meanwhile, an UPDATE ON THE FARMS:

I spent a good bit of last week traveling around North Carolina visiting our growers. My first stop was on the far northeastern end of the state-- Tyner, NC-- to Looking Back Farms, Inc. I have mentioned Looking Back a number of times in blog posts-- Ben and Kenny Haines, a father and son team. Kenny Haines sits on Carolina Ground, L3C's Board of Directors, so he is the farmer that I speak with often. He has mentioned more than once that I need to come out and ride around in the tractor and/or combine to really get a feel for what is going on on their farm. And so, moments after parking my car on the edge of one of their fields, I was up in the tractor cab with Kenny, and while he dragged a land planer on the field he was preparing for planting our NuEast seed, we talked. One item in need of further discussion (beyond our oft phone conversations) is pricing. A major impetus for launching this project has been to establish fair pricing based on real value removed from the pressures of the global commodities market. This past harvest, the prices we paid for grain were much higher than anticipated but this was partly due to the small lots of various varieties of grain we had planted. My plan for this year has been to streamline the process by having fewer varieties planted and on larger plots of land. For 2012 harvest, the Haines are growing for us a little over twenty acres of Turkey wheat and another twenty of NuEast (as opposed to last year when they grew a bit of Turkey, a bit of NuEast, a bit of Wrens Abruzzi rye, a bit of Appalachian White, etc.) Although I am confident that we will find sustainable pricing, while riding around in the tractor, Kenny discussed with me costs that the farm must incur that they have no control over. He pointed to a small metal blade on his land planer that they needed to replace-- it cost close to a thousand dollars just for that small piece of metal. And they are still strapped to the cost of fuel for their tractor and combine. The rise in the price of steel meant that they were only able to put in two grain bins with their newly acquired grain and seed cleaning equipment instead of the four bins they had originally planned for. I know we are heading in the right direction by working to close the gap between our farmers and bakers and brewers, but the idea of completely hedging ourselves from global economic pressures is sadly not so simple. But the Haines are in it for the long haul and they are constantly working to improve their farming systems for greater efficiency and productivity. They have around 350 acres of certified organic land in production and they recently set up grain and seed cleaning infrastructure that is also certified organic. They are poised to sell grain by the truckload-- 55,000 lb bulk or cleaned in 1-ton totes, or cleaned and bagged in 50# bags. The cleaning equipment works for various grains, pulses, and beans. On my visit I spied a couple 1-ton totes of cow peas-- beautiful-- on route to Anson Mills, in Columbia, SC.With their grain and seed cleaning set up, they are now both grain farmer and seed dealer-- of certified organic (grain and cover crop) seed to boot.

The next farm on my tour was Fred Miller's Hill Top Farms in Willow Springs, just outside of Raleigh. I first met Fred a couple years ago in the Sam's parking lot off I-40 on the edge of Raleigh, to procure 500# of Arapaho wheat that he had grown. This is Fred's tenth season farming, and grains are something he is slowly integrating into his farming system. This year he has both hard wheat-- TAM 303 and barley-- six-row Thoroughbred-- in the ground. Fred's is a diverse farm which includes high tunnels and gardens, chickens, goats, horses, a CSA and a farm stand. Across the road is where his grain is planted.

My next farm was in the Sandhills, in Eagle Springs, to Carter's Farm. Billy Carter showed me the close to twenty acres of Wrens Abruzzi rye he is growing for us and the 150 acres of TAM 303 he has in the ground that is likely heading to Lindley Mills, although it is not all spoken for and I am hoping we will be milling some of this as well.

Next stop was outside of Charlotte-- Gastonia-- to Job White's farm. Job is a young farmer just starting out. I am sure I have mentioned in previous posts that last year he planted ten acres of Turkey wheat but sadly had no way to harvest. Arranging with neighboring farms for combining can be iffy at best. He bush hogged the wheat but then called and said it reseeded itself. He asked me if he should just let it grow or plow it under and replant. I called Chris Reberg- Horton at NCSU and Thom Leonard (who has a lot to do with bringing Turkey back into production) and Kenny Haines for their advice and they all echoed the same sentiment-- let it grow! So he did. And btw, he is looking for a small combine-- ideally a PTO-driven all-crop combine-- if anyone had a lead, please let us know.

On my way from Gastonia to my final stop in Mt Ulla, I drove through Morresville where right on the very edge of town, across the street from the fire dept, towers Bay State Milling. I got out and took some pictures. The air smelled like flour.

Next and final stop-- the western piedmont-- Mt Ulla, to the Hofner's famer. The Hofner's are members of the Organic Valley Co-op and they grew five acres of Appalachian White for us last year. We were hoping for twenty acres of TAM 303 from them this year, but sadly the ground had been too wet and as of last week, they had not been able to plant. Buddy said he thinks they still have til X-mas to get their seed in the ground, but he didnt seem too hopeful. Though he had a beautiful field of barley growing that they planted back in October for the Riverbend Malt House.

Upon leaving the Hofner's I drove to the end of their Kerr Mill Road to visit the Kerr Mill, which is now a state park. see pix above...

Green tag!!

So we finally got our green tag from the fire marshall!! Green looks so much more promising then the callous red tag we received a couple months back...

Monday we hope to have our Certificate of Occupancy in hand...

Treska Lindsey's children's books and their wonderful connection to our mill

This Saturday (the 3rd), and next, and the following (the 10th & the 17th) is the 9th Annual Holiday Bazaar, taking place in the parking lot behind the Asheville Chamber of Commerce. Amongst the many vendors of local crafts and food, Farm & Sparrow Breads can be found, and alongside Farm & Sparrow's rustic breads and pastries, sharing their tent, will be Treska Lindsey selling her wonderful children's books. I mention this for a couple reasons. The first-- the most obvious-- is that Treska is donating a portion of the proceeds to our mill project. And the second-- also pretty obvious once you see the books-- is that these books are a wonderful find and a great gift. Also, there is a rich story that connects these books to our mill project...

The story began with a loaf of bread brought back to the States from Belgium. This was during the 1970's health food craze in this country that deemed yeasted brown bread as the healthy choice-- bread that both looked and tasted like cardboard. But a slice from this bread brought back from Belgium was handed to a Dr Hy Lerner.

Lerner was a medical doctor impressed by evidence that pointed to the overwhelming importance of proper nutrition in relation to mental and physical health. I imagine that within the jungle of brown bread touted as healthy, tasting this bread from Belgium must have been a revelatory moment. At the time Lerner was working as a researcher at Harvard, but he began spending all of his spare time trying to recreate that loaf without success. Finally he and his friend, Paul Petrofsky pooled their savings and headed to Belgium. The bread had come from Lima Bakery, and that is where these two landed. They secured an apprenticeship with Omer Gevaert of Lima Bakery. They learned all they could about desem, this traditional Flemish natually-leavened bread, and eventually returned to the states to open Baldwin Hill Bakery in Phillipston, Massachusetts. In 1979, the Saturday Evening Post published an article about Baldwin Hill written by Charlotte Turgeon, a colleague and friend of Julia Childs,

Hy Lerner and Paul Petrofsky, white-collar professionals turned bakers, who produce perhaps the best tasting bread this side of the Atlantic—or the other—a bread that preserves all the natural vitamins, minerals, and usable protein that nature put into wheat germ, sea salt, and pure water

Cookbook author, Laurel Robertson (Laurel's Kitchen) read that article and made a pilgrimage to Baldwin Hill to learn about this bread. And she later devoted an entire chapter in her Laurel's Bread Book to desem. Laurel happened to have been dear friends with the late oven builder and designer, Alan Scott. And it was Laurel's interest in this bread that got Alan to build his first oven, as this traditional bread which predates commercial baking yeast and conventional ovens-- this bread made with simply freshly milled flour, water, and sea salt-- deserved the ancient technology of the wood-fired brick oven. Alan began baking this bread as well, in the wood-fired brick oven he built in his own backyard. He also began selling bread, door-to-door.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. I read Laurel's chapter on desem and tried to recreate this bread without success. And so I secured an apprenticeship with Alan Scott. I eventually launched Natural Bridge Bakery and then, after over a decade of baking, at the point when I was ready to begin the transition out of baking, I reached out to Alan to see if he could find a young baker that may want to share my bakery space in order to launch his or her own bakery. Alan found Dave Bauer, who would become Farm and Sparrow Breads.

Now if you dig back to my original posts, you will read the story of how we acquired our mill. It was Alan's mill, and he passed away before he was able to launch his milling operation in Tasmania, Australia. But how does Treska come into this story? Well, her brother was Omer Gavaert. Treska now lives in Flat Rock, raising her extensive garden and goats and fruit trees, and writing these wonderful children's books. My favorite, of course, is How Batistine Made Bread. But come see for yourself...

From the ground up,

Jennifer

ps the images embedded in this post are a little preview of Treska's work.

pss The Bazaar is from 11am to 3pm, Dec 3, 10th, and 17th, in the parking lot behind the Asheville Chamber of Commerce.