Bread was seen as evil in my house growing up. We never seemed to eat it much. I think it was thought only to bloat and plumpify. That’s fine, I guess. Most of it’s crap – white, bleached, dead stuff. Unless I’m eating warm garlic rolls at an Italian restaurant, which I rarely am, I tend to stay away from it unless it’s sprouted Ezekiel.
A few years ago my son and I went to the all-day San Juan County Master Gardeners’ Annual Gardening Workshop in Friday Harbor. One of the many talks of the day, after the welcome lecture by Seeds, Feathers, and Buzz author Thor Hanson, was given by Dr. Stephen Jones of the Bread Lab. The Bread Lab is a Washington State University breeding, growing, milling, and baking program that is conducted at the Port of Skagit.
After his lecture, I raised my hand. I told Stephen Jones how bread was seen as bad when I was growing up and I had never been told that it was actually good until hearing him speak. I asked him to tell me more about why it’s good. He proceeded to explain the many aspects of bread’s high nutrition, as long as it is mindfully and locally grown without pesticides and baked without all of its good qualities first being removed.
I now splurge on a locally-grown, sprouted-grain bread that arrives fresh on the shelves at Orcas Island Co-op a few times a week. It’s $6.99, which I can’t believe I’m paying, but it meets all of Stephen’s qualifications for a nutritious, local bread.
Here’s what Barn Owl Bakery says about themselves, which is pretty cool:
“Barn Owl Bakery is an artisan craft bakery at Midnight’s Farm on Lopez Island in Washington State. All of our baked goods are made by hand from scratch with the highest quality organic ingredients and baked in a wood fired oven. We use no commercial yeast or chemical leavening in any of our baked goods. Instead we foster and rely on a wild leaven, rich with bacteria and yeasts, to impart flavor and nutrition to breads and pastries. We use only seasonal produce grown on Midnight’s Farm and fruit from farms and orchards on Lopez. We’re partnered with Island Grist, a gasifier powered stone mill, and Horsedrawn Farm, a live powered farm, to grow, thresh, and mill Lopez grown grains for our baked goods. Good bread, good soil, good eating. You can find our breads year round at Blossom Grocery, the Southend General Store, and the Orcas Co-op. Restaurants that serve our bread are Vortex Cafe, Vita’s Wildly Delicious, Poutine, Catkin Cafe, Southend Restaurant, Rosario Resort, and Ursa Minor.”
