Meet the Miller: Nan Kohler

Photo kindly contributed by Nan Kohler

Related post: Sonora White Whole Wheat Jelly Roll

What does a sprawling modern American city like Los Angeles have in common with the tiny age-old Southwestern France village my paternal ancestors hail from? I bet you'll never guess. Are you ready to give votre langue au chat (literally "your tongue to the cat," in other words give up guessing)? Yes? All right, then I'll let you in on the secret: both feature a mill!
I grew up hearing stories about the moulin du village (the village mill) and how my great-grandmother loved to walk over there to forage for watercress in the nearby brook and tailler une bavette (have a long chat) with the miller and his wife (who belonged to another branch of our family)* and maybe some friends and neighbors before hiking home along the dusty road, a bag of flour on her shoulder, ready for the forthcoming baking day. As a descendent of this strong and congenial woman and as a baker who mills most of her whole-grain flours herself, I was emotionally ready for some serious pangs when we finally visited the old place (with my parents no less) at the end of a parched summer ten years ago.
I am sorry to report that I felt no pangs (at least none that were bread-related.) The mill was still standing. A valiant effort had been made to salvage parts of it after decades of  neglect and disrepair but it had become a résidence secondaire (a weekend home) and the millstones had morphed into fenceposts. Also, the road between the mill and the village had been paved. Not that anyone would have hiked it carrying a bag of flour...

In Los Angeles by contrast, the mill is brand-new...

... you can park at the door (no schlepping necessary)...

...and the miller is alive and well, eager not only to grind the best local grain she can get her hands on (preferably from old varieties) but also to place the mill at the center of community life once again. Nan Kohler's urban flour mill, Grist & Toll, has only been in operation for a few weeks but it has already attracted a lot of attention, not to mention customers: right now she can only open for retail three days a week (on Closed days, she mills her flours) but as soon as she finds help, business hours will be extended.

Nan drew inspiration for the name of her mill from her research into ancient rural practices: "Grist and toll are two very old milling terms that sort of sum up how wheat traveled through potentially many hands before it showed up as a loaf of bread or baked good on a family table. Since the beginnings of civilization, wheat has been grown and milled to produce life-sustaining bread. Flour mills were natural epicenters in growing communities, to which local and distant farmers would travel with their “grist” or grain harvest. Once the grist had been milled, the miller would take his “toll”, an agreed upon percentage of the flour, in lieu of wages. Depending on where and in what time period you lived, many tolls could potentially have been taken along the way - the local baker at the community oven was allowed to keep a portion of each loaf before baking in order to create a loaf for his family, and in France there were separate bolting facilities, or sifting houses, who would receive the single pass flour from a mill and sift it to create the more refined pastry flours; they were allowed a toll as well."

On opening day, in November 2013, Grist & Toll drew a lively crowd of bakers, interested not only in showing off their breads but in trying out the mobile wood-fired oven Michael O'Malley, an artist, professor and fellow serious home baker, had built for himself and brought to the parking lot for the occasion. A variety of breads were baked and devoured and from what I heard, the mobile oven will soon be back by popular demand, possibly on a regular basis**. Recalling my Dad's memories of the village oven and of the six-pound miches his grandmother used to bake in it every other week, now I am feeling the pangs, moved to the quick by the notion that a way of life he had thought forever gone might be making a comeback a world away and a century later...

Nan Kohler's Triple IV whole grain flour

Nan Kohler's Sonora whole grain pastry flour

A miller's flour is only as good as his or her grain and, be it wheat, rye or spelt, Nan Kohler is very particular about her grain. In fact her love of grain dates back to the days when she was still a pastry chef and owned a baking business: her style wasn’t the "overly sweet sugar bombs," as she puts it; she needed diversity, wanted to taste the chocolate, the vanilla, the butter. Always on the lookout for new ingredients, she started to incorporate alternate grains (whole wheat pastry flour, spelt, oats. etc.) in her pastries, combining them with sweet butter to discover new flavors and she soon fell under the spell.
On a trip to Paris, by the sheerest of coincidences, she became acquainted with another LA resident and grain aficionada, TV screenwriter and producer Marti Noxon who is today her business partner. A talented cook and baker, Marti is a methodical woman who likes to broaden and deepen her knowledge of food by devoting each year to a different topic. The year Nan met her was the Year of Bread.
Talk about karma! Nan had just watched an old recording of Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth, more specifically the episode where Ruth Reichl goes to Bath and makes bread with Richard Bertinet. She had found herself mesmerized by the part where Bertinet takes Ruth to Shipton Mill to meet owner John Lister, a former anthropologist who came to milling because he wanted "a life where he was doing something real." She listened as Lister explained that every baking process needed a different type of flour and heard Bertinet say: "A good baker will make good bread with a good miller."That's all she remembers because after that the only thing she could think of was: "Why don’t we have that in LA? Is it even possible? Do we even grow wheat?"
Marti and Nan had a girls' night out to discuss what interested them in baking. It soon became obvious that they were both passionate enough about it that delving deeper into the matter was warranted. Nan started researching: she met with Janice Cooper, Executive Director of the California Wheat Commission, attended the 2012 Kneading Conference West (now The Grain Gathering) where she met Mark Stambler, founding member of the Los Angeles Bread Bakers, and Dr. Stephen Jones, Director, Washington State University Research and Extension at Mt Vernon, and one of the nation's foremost grain specialists. Dr. Jones helped her connect with local farmers who wanted to bring back landraces and Mark Stambler directed her to passionate bakers eager to make bread with local flours.
Through Janice Cooper, she became acquainted with Tom Shepherd of Shepherd Farms who farms in the Santa Ynez Valley north of Santa Barbara: she now buys all the wheat he grows, this year Triple IV, Red Fife and a bit of Glenn. Tom dry-farms his grain, which means that the yield is lower but the quality top-notch. In a state where land is very expensive and the cost of water outrageous, the biggest challenge is to put together a sustainable grain-growing structure. He and other like-minded farmers are therefore hugely interested in California landraces which are adapted to the drought. Nan is a firm believer in landraces: "California is operating at a wheat-loss. We grow wheat but we export so much that we cannot feed ourselves and we are losing control of our seeds. We aren’t thinking long-term. We need to try and stop this trend."
Further north, other California farmers are working towards the same goal within the framework of the Mendocino grain project. Closer to home, the Los Angeles Bread Bakers (LABB) have been trying to grow wheat and spelt in Agura Hills, northeast of the city. Their efforts failed last year (I followed their farming adventures on their blog, at first with great excitement then with a feeling of doom: Hoping to share the wheat, Reporting sheepishly, 3rd week of April,  Slim Pickens and Harvest is done). LABB lost a battle but it didn't lose the war. As Nan puts it, "Where we plant needs to be tended to. Someone needs to be farming there. The plot we chose last year was in the middle of a residential area, which made it appealing to wildlife (deer, squirrels, birds) and there was no farmer to watch it. Also, too many seeds were planted too shallowly." We live and learn. Even though LABB hasn't embarked upon a new experimental wheat planting project this year, it continues to be supportive of and actively involved in attempts to jump-start a local and sustainable grain hub in Southern California. Meanwhile it is calling for bakers to grow grain at their front door (presumably so that they can keep an eye on the crop).
Grist & Toll currently carries two wheat flours, Triple IV and Sonora. Hard red winter Triple IV contains 12.5% protein. Originally grown as animal feed, it was found to have excellent bread-baking properties and is now grown for artisan baking. Soft Sonora white wheat is lower in protein (11.5%): it can be used both for pastry and, with careful handling, for bread. "Interestingly," says Nan, "at one point in California's history, Sonora was about 80% of all the wheat planted up and down the state. Today only a handful of growers are trying to revive it, mostly in Northern California. I am able to purchase and mill Sonora because of a connection my friends at Hayden Flour Mills made for me, so it is coming from Arizona. However, there are two farmers who have just planted this year closer to our area - in Santa Barbara County and Kern County, so I hope to have a California source later this year.  As an aside: purchasing some grain from Arizona helps our whole movement. Arizona, like Northern California, is ahead of us in successfully growing some of the landrace wheat varieties. By purchasing some of their grain and helping their farmers pull through and sell what they have grown, I hope I am adding to their demand and encouraging those farmers to plant again and perhaps even increase their plantings." Think locally and act regionally! I like Nan's thinking...

Once her grain sourced, Nan had to find a mill. Easier said than done. She travelled to Maine to meet with the organizers of the original Kneading Conference and to Arizona to consult with Jeff and Emma Zimmerman of Hayden Flours Mills.  She conferred on the phone with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills from she received advice and encouragement. It soon became clear to her that artisanal milling equipment was no longer manufactured in the United States, largely because our society had allowed the craft of milling to die off. Only one American company, Meadows Mills, was still making a smaller mill, but their only possible option had vertically placed milling stones and Nan was on the hunt for horizontal ones: milling can generate a lot of heat and because heat is detrimental to the living organisms and nutrients present in the grain, she wanted the added control that horizontal stones would give her in slowing the process down.
There were more choices in Europe where several bakers still mill their own flours and after careful research, Nan finally settled on a 2,500 lb Osttiroler Getreidemühlen, made by an Austrian company which had remained in the hands of the same family for more than 75 years. She loved the wood which helped prevent the flour from overheating, the horizontally placed stones and the gleaming good looks and, as an added bonus, once the mill delivered and set up, her husband, Chris Kohler, found a way to attach a motor to a variable frequency drive, so that she could slow things down even more.

Photo kindly contributed by Nan Kohler

Nan has a sifter and plans to make hi-extraction flour. She also plans to install ovens in the kitchen for testing and recipe-development. "It is essential for me to understand the flours I sell, to be knowledgeable about their characteristics, to know for instance that Triple IV requires 90% hydration; that Sonora is even thirstier, that it is good for pastry because low in protein but that you can make very good bread with it, etc. Before I opened Grist & Toll, I milled my grain at home. My first mill was a Jansen. As soon as I started milling, even generic wheat, it became obvious how much more interesting the flavor was."
The biggest challenge in becoming an urban miller in Los Angeles was undeniably dealing with the city. "There is an unbelievable lack of enthusiasm at city level, especially in the Health Department, for encouraging businesses that are different. Which meant I had to go to lots of meetings, bring tons of pictures, talk the process through and through. It took forever." That in spite of the fact that at city management level, they loved the idea: they knew it meant lots of interaction with other businesses and with schools. Indeed several schools are already planning to grow wheat so that it can be milled and baked. "Those are important and sustainable things to preserve."
They are indeed and Grist & Toll appears set to play a big role in promoting local grain and keeping village life alive and well in the greater Los Angeles area. Kudos to the miller!

Photo kindly contributed by Nan Kohler

*As I said we were with my parents on that particular visit to my father's childhood lieux de mémoire (literally, places of remembrance). He explained that this other branch of our family had held the exclusive right to all the mills in the valley for generations (they didn't own them, just operated them), a fact that he was immensely proud of. He also said that in ancient times, the village mill hadn't belonged to the miller or even to the village but to the seigneur (the lord) who owned the local castle and paid the miller a salary. This state of affairs may have changed at the end of the eighteenth-century after the French Revolution. I wish I had thought of asking... What I do know is that from the fourteenth century on, millers weren't allowed to be bakers as well, probably because it would given them too much economic heft.
** Michael O'Malley is bringing his mobile wood-fired oven back to Grist & Toll on February 9. For more info, read here. 

Sonora White Whole Wheat Jelly Roll

West/Southwest meets North/Northwest, white Sonora wheat meets red kuri squash. Made with 60% Sonora white whole wheat pastry flour (bought at Grist & Toll in Los Angeles, California, from grain grown either in California or in Arizona) and 40% white whole wheat pastry flour (bought at Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill in Burlington, Washington) from grain grown in nearby Lynden, this sunny cake is a regular melting pot, all the more so as it is filled with jam made last fall from our Northwest bumper crop of red kuris.

The Sonora accounts for the pale yellow and the red kuri for the bright orange, and together, they make for a soft texture and complex taste. They may overshadow the less assertive Northwest white but then, sorry, Lynden grain, this time you were invited in a strictly supporting role as, right or wrong, I wasn't sure the Sonora would have been up for a roll with macho kuri jam without your help. But fear not, your turn to shine will come again...

Ingredients

*   I used two different flours because I wasn't sure that the Sonora flour would be strong enough for a jelly roll if used by itself

** I used grape-seed oil

*** Or any medium-soft jam or jelly

For those of you who are using BreadStorm (including the free version), please click on this link to import the formula.  For more on BreadStorm, you may want to read this post.

Method
For the instructions, please refer to the first five steps of this King Arthur Flour recipe (from which I adapted the list of ingredients).

If there is any red kuri jelly roll leftover, you might want to squeeze a sweet orange (such as a Cara Cara navel) over the whole thing the next day, let the crumb soak up the juice for a couple of minutes and... I'll say no more, you'll know bliss when you taste it.

Scott Mangold: Test-Baking with Local Wheats

Related posts:
Kneading Conference West 2012
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time
Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters

This year as last year, it was tough to make a choice between all the workshops, lectures, roundtables and demos offered at the Kneading Conference West and on that gorgeous Saturday morning (the last morning), I would especially have loved to attend one of the events taking place in the outdoor tent area instead of hanging out in the lobby kitchen, which is where Scott was giving his demo. But local grains were calling and local grains I picked!
I am glad I did. Sott gave us useful pointers which I am happy to share here.  I took copious notes and so did my friend and fellow SHB/bread blogger breadsong who was sitting next to me. When she heard I was going to write up the class for this blog, she very kindly sent me her notes. What follows is an amalgamed summary of what we both wrote down. Thank you, breadsong!
The whole wheat Scott Mangold is currently baking with at Breadfarm, his beautiful bakery in the Skagit valley, is milled nearby at Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill but it is grown in Whatcom county. Stephen Jones, Director, WSU Research and Extension Center at Mt. Vernon, is seeking to grow locally flavorful wheat that could be used by bakers and Scott hopes to be able to make a Skagit Valley bread one day. Meanwhile he tries the flours he can put his hands on with varied results: local wheats are inherently inconsistent. Even when working with them as individual varieties, there will be variability in flour performance because of the climate and the weather.
For this morning's demo, Scott picked Camas Red Fife (12.8% protein), Renan (a standard French varietal, 12.3% protein), Hedlin Farm's Bauermeister (10% protein - last year's crop as this year's is fairly low in protein) and Red Russian (14.6% protein).

Scott describes the in-bakery test bake system that he has devised for himself: when he gets his hands on a new flour, he always begins by taking a small amount which he mixes in a straight dough, then ferments and bakes. The process never varies, which makes later comparisons much easier. He strongly recommends that we too, at home or at the bakery:

• Take detailed notes about times, temperatures and water amounts
• Rely on feel: as the flour absorbs the water, the dough feel may change. You may have to adjust hydration to get the consistency you are looking for (keep notes on the amount of added water)
• Make note of the dough temperature at the end of the mixing

As bakers, we need to keep in mind that:

• Flour is at its best within 24 hours of milling. After that, it needs at least two weeks to oxidize properly
• When protein is concerned, quality trumps quantity: The speed of dough development correlates with the quality of the protein: glutenin provides elasticity and gliadin extensibility. Spring wheat has higher levels of protein but these proteins are organized in a less compact way. Winter wheat's dormancy period during the growing season makes for a better perfoming protein
• The quality of the protein is what determines how long the dough needs to be mixed. When gluten develops poorly during mixing, use the stretch and fold technique

What goes on in a dough

• Yeast consumes sugar and produces gas (the warmer the dough and/or the more leavening it contains, the faster it happens)
• Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) produce lactic and acetic acids.  If using a pre-ferment and a long fermentation, acidity is produced even in yeasted breads. Acidity strengthens the bonds of gluten. The colder the dough, the slower the production of acidity
• Enzymes are at work: amylase converts starch to sugar and protease weakens the gluten. Enzymatic activity is less temperature-dependent and more time-dependent
• These three phenomena are "happening in a dance together"

Enzymes

• Amylase is activated in the presence of water and breaks down complex sugars to produce simple sugars that the yeast can feed on. Amylase activity is measured by the flour's falling number  (an information which is seldom to be found on the bags of flour available to home bakers). A high falling number (ex: 400) means that the flour is a slow mover and will be good for long-fermented doughs. A low falling number (ex: 250 or less) means that amylatic activity is high. Amylase brings a nutty flavor to the bread
• Protease's role is to denature protein: it helps increase the extensibility of the dough by softening a strong gluten. Salt is a protease inhibitor and is good for a loose dough which it helps tighten
• Using more pre-ferment or a riper pre-ferment to boost acidity will strengthen protein bonds. You can adjust the temperature of the pre-ferment to influence the level of acidity 
• Protease activity and amylase activity go hand in hand: they increase with time

Pre-ferments

When we use a pre-ferment, we are extending the time when the flour is wet, thus increasing enzymatic activity and acidity: we allow the amylase to break down more complex sugars into simple sugars that the yeast can feed on and the increased acidity counters the increased proteolytic activity (the weakening of the gluten by the protease)

• Poolish (liquid pre-ferment): when it is ripe, its surface will dome and it'll be bubbly. An upward "curl" will be visible at the edges. As it continues to ripen, the surface will become concave and sink in and it will show lines. The poolish is then at its prime
• Biga (stiff pre-ferment): use a poke test. Use it when it feels the same as a fermented dough ready to shape or bake

Soakers

• Whole-milled wheat yields a flour which contains much more active enzymes
• Peter Reinhart's technique (epoxy method) when baking with whole wheat is to let the processes happen prior to the mixing by using a soaker
• A soaker is basically a long autolyse: it allows for enzymatic activity in the absence of fermentation and acidity. The protease acts on the gluten and the amylase creates sugar which is not consumed by yeast since no yeast is present
• In a nutshell, a soaker yields more sugar, uses more water and makes the dough weaker. If you suspect that the dough will be too weak, use salt in the soaker

Autolyse

• Do an autolyse: the autolyse allows for full absorption of the water into the flour, facilitating the bonding of the protein molecules and the development of the gluten. It also jumpstarts enzymatic activity. At the bakery, Scott uses a modified autolyse, soaking flour and water overnight in the walk-in. Then in the morning he uses 15 or 20% of this autolyse in each mix without doing a new autolyse for each. He learned the technique from Jeff Yankellow who used it for Team USA 2000
• Hydrate the autolyse at 70% (in regular baking, whole wheat would require a much higher hydration, maybe 85%, as it loves water)
• Let the autolyse rest 20 minutes

Mixing

• Add yeast, disperse in the mixer and let it incorporate for a few minutes before adding the salt (salt is a tenderizer and breaks down protein)
• Periodically evaluate the development of the dough in the mixing bowl (windowpane test)
• If the proteins are not strong enough, you will weaken the gluten if you continue mixing. Use more folds
• Don't mix too fast: it weakens the dough
• Stiffer doughs generate more heat during mixing
• Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a strengthener for weak doughs
• Desired dough temperature for these tests is 75°F at the end of the mixing

Fermentation and proofing

• The more time for fermentation, the more alcohol (and flavor) is produced: flavor results from a combination of sugar and alcohol. If the yeast consumes all the sugar, you'll get a flatter-tasting loaf

Evaluating the dough

• Scott is following the method devised by Cliff Leir of fol épi bakery in Victoria, BC, to evaluate the dough as it comes out of the mixer: he takes two ounces of each mix, forms small boules and leaves them to sit, covered, next to each other so that he can compare the rise to spread ratio of each and assess proteolytic activity (degree of gluten weakening by protease)
• For each dough, after 30 minutes of bulk fermentation, check to see how quickly it is fermenting and how is the gluten handling the fermentation. Do a tug test: what is the dough's resistance? Test elasticity: does the dough stand up or fall back down after being tugged (standing up is a predictor of good loaf volume)? Is the dough trapping gas? Stretch another gluten window and see how the gluten is holding up/developing. A good gluten window will be hard to break at that stage
• After 45 minutes of bulk fermentation, check the dough again: how is it inflating? Do a poke test (as you would for a proof test), does the dough push back? If the dough holds your fingerprint, it could mean that the gluten is strong enough to hold down the rise; the gas produced by the yeast is being held tightly; there will be more pressure in the loaf and smaller holes in the crumb. Does the dough feel sticky or release water?

Note: The dough may be fermenting but could be releasing gas if it is porous (it happens when gas is escaping but you don't see any holes in the surface of the dough). When it is time to shape, check to see if the dough is collapsing. If the proteins are breaking down, you will have small holes and a homogenous crumb.

Variables in fermentation and proofing

• Rapid fermentation/slow proof: the yeast is running out of sugar. Next time, reduce the amount of leavening and use a soaker instead of a pre-ferment
• Rapid fermentation/fast proof: enzymatic activity is high. Sometimes the dough will get wetter and softer. Next time you might want to decrease hydration. Do not use a soaker
• Slow fermentation/slow proof: low amylase activity. Use both a pre-ferment and a soaker but decrease the amount of leavening in the pre-ferment to give yeast more time
• Slow fermentation/fast proof: very rare. Sometimes it is a good thing, but if it isn't, just don't use that flour again

Compensating for flour deficiencies based on test results

If the flour contains a high percentage of protein, next time:

• Do an autolyse
• Under-mix (a web of gluten is a lot like thread count on a sheet: the less you mix, the fewer the connections between the strands)
• Stretch and fold (more frequently)
• Boost acidity by using a riper pre-ferment or more pre-ferment
• Increase hydration
• Bump up proteolytic activity by not salting the pre-ferment or soaker

If the quality of the gluten is poor, next time:

• Reduce fermentation time
• Increase leavening
• Pre-ferment a greater portion of the flour
• Bump up acidity: use pre-ferment when at or past its prime
• Stiffen up the dough by decreasing hydration (but you'll lose some flavor)
• Don't use a soaker

If dough is hyperactive, next time:

• Decrease the amount of leavening in the pre-ferment
• Decrease fermentation time

If poor rise and no color out of the oven, next  time: 

• Give amylase more time (use a soaker)
• Increase the quantity of pre-ferment (giving more time to amylitic activity)
• Extend fermentation time (more folds), so that the amylase has more time to cleave the sugar off the starch

The results of the testing are mostly relevant to those of us who have access to the same flours as Scott. But just to give you an idea of the conclusions he was able to draw for himself in case he wanted to use these flours again, here is what he found:

• Camas Red Fife: Seems fine for baking purposes. Add water. Use an unsalted soaker. Use a pre-ferment (small amount). Decrease the yeast and increase fermentation time
• Renan: Increase hydration to make the dough softer. Increase the amount of sugar available to the yeast by using a soaker with salt and a pre-ferment
• Hedlin Bauermeister: Slow it down by half, do more folds, bump up acidity by using a ripe pre-ferment and maybe use a soaker
• Red Russian: Bump up acidity by using a ripe pre-ferment. Do not use a soaker

Such pointers are what we are looking to get out of these tests. Scott is encouraging: "It is a lot of information to wrap your head around but once you see the various adjustments that can be made, it is fairly straightforward."
He adds: "We have years of work ahead of us here in Western Washington. We need to find wheats that are resistant to rust while looking for flavor and long fermentations. We have a miller but no storage capacity (such as the grain elevators in the Midwest). The miller could conceivably make a blend of local wheats but his mill isn't equipped to mill white flour. Also, our customers do not buy lots of whole grain breads, so we cannot completely switch over. But we would still like to use local wheat, so we need to find a solution."
Right now grain is mostly grown here as a rotation crop and sold to Asia as pastry wheat. Farmers usually lose money on it but it is good for the soil. If they could make money on grain, they could grow more. They would make more money off of the commodity market. As for the baker,  he would get a better product than when he buys from the Midwest something that was milled last year and doesn't offer good nutrition.
There are ways to make white flour more nutritious, for instance going for a higher extraction flour. Cliff Leir (who mills his own flour) soaks the wheat for a minimum of eight to ten hours, which softens the bran. When milled, the bran pops off in big flakes which builds up in a catch sifter and the whole aleurone layer and germ make it into the white flour.

Results of the test bake

Kneading Conference West 2012

Don't you love it when you find yourself in a crowd of people and experience an overwhelming feeling of togetherness and belonging? I know I do although it doesn't happen to me very often because outside immediate circles of intimacy, love and friendship, I am usually an outsider looking in. Having now lived in the United States for as long as I have lived in France, I am truly bicultural. In practical terms it means that due to the twin sets of references I carry in my head and heart, I never completely blend in on either side of the Atlantic. Truth be told, I cherish (and maybe nurture) this internal divide: exile is very much my country of choice and I have come to rather enjoy the exquisite ache of nostalgia and longing, especially in today's connected world where the other side is only a click away.

Still I love to belong as much as the next person and at the Kneading Conference West, this  year as last year, I found myself both part of a larger whole and at one with it. Loosely defined, the Conference (co-sponsored in part by the Bread Bakers Guild of America) is a gathering of bakers (both home bakers and professionals), millers, growers and brewers all interested in bringing local grains back to their communities. Last year we mostly talked about reviving cultures which had thrived in the Pacific Northwest since the nineteenth century before agribusiness decided it would be more profitable for these grains to be grown on a massive scale in the Midwest. This year, we discussed moving forward and finding ways to sustain the renaissance of local grains overtime, be it wheat, barley, rye or spelt, to name only a few.

Having grown up on local food (my grandparents grew, raised and foraged for a large part of what we ate, not to mention the hunting for small game that went on in the fall in the nearby woods), I have a deep respect for terroir and man's connection to the land and I love it that there is a movement afoot in America away from industrial and processed food. I still remember my shock when we moved to New York in 1979 and I first saw baguettes at the supermarket. I picked one up from the bin where it stood, wrapped in plastic, among several other pale companions, I lifted it out. To my surprise and consternation, it bowed deeply forward and remained that way all the way home. Due to the then-prevalent preference for overmixing and fast fermentations, bread was generally mediocre in France at the time we moved, so it isn't as if I had left behind a continent of fragrant and crusty loaves. Still I had never seen such pliable bread and it was depressing. It took many years, the publication of Nancy Silverton's Breads of the La Bread Bakery and my discovery of levain before we had baguettes on the table again on a regular basis.

So the local theme is one which resonates with me but it wasn't until keynotes speakers Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters and Naomi Duguid, co-author (among many other books) of Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas - a book I own since 1997 and still always open with a sense of wonder - started talking about their experiences that it all coalesced in my mind. Nancy Silverton and many other talented bakers after her taught us traditional French methods of bread-baking focusing on gentle mixing and long fermentations. Such baking is mostly based on a type of flour that offers reasonably consistent results because it comes from a blend of grains chosen for their baking properties, that is to say commercial white flour.

If we want to use more local grains (and we do or we wouldn't have been attending the Conference), we must accept the fact that our bread may not turn out exactly the same day after day. To get as close as possible to the crumb and crust we like, we need to learn how to compensate for the variability built in local wheat. The good news, as Scott Mangold cheerfully put it during his excellent workshop on test baking local whole wheat flours, is that, in the process, we will become better bakers. But growing to love the taste and texture of these local breads as much as those of the white baguette we may still hold as a gold standard will require keeping an open mind and educating both ourselves, our families and our friends (in the case of the home baker) and our customers (in case of the professional baker). As we slowly incorporate more local whole grains into our baking, the payoff will be huge however in terms of flavor, diversity, nutrition and the environment.

The way I suddenly understood it, our new role, as bakers, is to build upon our knowledge of traditional French bread-baking to help strengthen and sustain our communities here in America. What could possibly induce a deeper sense of finally belonging in this French woman who emigrated from her native Paris years and years ago and now bakes in the Pacific Northwest?

Of course I am lucky to live in a part of the country where (although much remains to be done), grains are already being grown, milled and made accessible to local bakers and brewers. If such is not the case where you live but you have access to a spot where you can grow what you like, you may want to read Growing Small Grains in Your Garden by Bob Van Veldhuizen. "A summation of many years of agronomic research into growing grains in Alaska scaled down to the typical home garden," it might give you some ideas on ways to get your family to kick off the white flour habit, even if you only have a balcony and your crop yields one tiny loaf... Should you decide to embark on that particular project, you may also want to read William Alexander's 52 Loaves, the lively account of a home grower/miller/baker's odyssey.

This year as last year, the Conference took place on the charmingly bucolic grounds of Western Washington State University Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center. Chaired by Stephen Jones, the Center's Director, it offered many different lectures, classes and workshops, not to mention evening tastings of local beers and ciders and, on the very last afternoon, a tour of the Hedlin Family Farm, BreadFarm Bakery and Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill. I didn't do the tour but I took as many classes and attended as many lectures as possible and I will report here on what I saw and heard. So please stay tuned!

Related Farine posts: 
Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters (keynote address)
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time (keynote address)
Kneading Conference West 2011
Scott Mangold: Test Baking with Local Wheats for Home and Bakery
Finnish Barley Bread (ohrarieska) (a Naomi Duguid recipe)

Other related posts:
By breadsong : Kneading Conference West - Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3
By Floyd Mann (The Fresh Loaf): Kneading Conference West - Part 1 & Part 2
By Naomi Duguid: Notes from the Skagit Valley
By Rhona McAdam: Kneading with a k
By Teresa Greenway: Kneading Conference West - Part 1 & Part 2

After I throw in a couple of flatbread and cracker recipes, not to mention the formula for the powerfully seductive barley-cheese-and-aged cheddar bread baked at the Conference by Andrew Ross from a British recipe adapted by Hannah Warren, my hope is that you too will want to answer Naomi Duguid's call to bakers: "Go back to your home or bakery and add at least two products than contain whole grains to your repertoire as well as at least one item made largely with a grain other than wheat"... It may not sound like much but if we all do it and buy our grain locally, seeds of change will germinate in our communities and grow to make a real difference.