I wanted to share a really exciting project that Andrew and Veronica from Bread Matters have on the go. I love bread, I love grain and I love Scotland so I guess there is no great mystery about why I find this so exciting! lol.
Veronica and Andrew are both passionate about putting good bread and the means to make it (and in this case grow and mill it) into the hands of communities around Scotland. To this end they are crowdsourcing for £6000 which will be match funded by a loan from A Team Challenge (so if they make it to the £6000 mark your contribution is effectively doubled). They have already passed the tipping point where the money pledged will be made available for the project and are well on the way but there are only 17 days left so there is still time to make a difference. Pledge something, read, share the information far and wide. Bake a loaf, take it to a friend and talk about it, then tell them to pass it along.
Scotland the bread on Buzzbnk
When you are done have a look at the Scotland the bread page on the Bread Matters website, it goes further into the supply chain, wheat breeding (easier than pandas and tastes better too) and opportunity for community involvement.
I've baked with local wheat, both in bread and in cakes and love it. It tastes of something, becomes more than just a white/brown bulking agent. Your baked goods suddenly own a story and a history, a story about farmers and rain, the fields it grew in, the cold sea mists and the glorious sunshine on the east coast of Scotland. You can talk about the people who milled it, harvested it, baked with it and got it to your table. If you are persuaded and would like to read more about or bake with local flour you could try the Mungos Wells website.
Friday 10 July 2015
Friday 7 February 2014
baking with the zen masters
When I was a teenager I had the usual boiling cauldron of teenage angst going on, the sort that causes outbreaks of black lipstick, skull earrings and listening to the same song on repeat for, oh four hours or so. In 2001 when I was no longer quite a teenager A whole new You by Shawn Colvin was released... I loved that cd, listened to it straight through (I was evolving you see) and then listened again. My favourite song turned out to be not the title track but a song called Anywhere you Go, a short musical meditation on finding your place in the world, a theme I could identify with as a young transguy not yet out and wondering where I was headed.
One line stuck with me, I often muttered it under my breath when having a bad moment "chop wood and carry water" it said to me "keep going, pick up your foot and take a step, keep talking and moving and you'll find a way". Bread is like that line for me, I (despite testosterone therapy) am not a born wood chopper, but I can take raw flour, water and salt and turn them into the staff of life, how much more zen can you get? In the same way that a perfectly stacked wood store is satisfying (bark up or down? pyramids or square?) the feeling of looking at racks and wires stacked with crusty, flour speckled and crackling loaves from the oven is much the same. Your hands worked it and made it and there is the product of your energies cooling and singing. They will leave your hands and be passed from person to person (in an ideal world) to the end consumer. A piece of you goes with them (ok I'm sorry, I'm sounding like a hippy here) your Will to create a wholesome bread that truly nourishes every part of a person, body and soul matters. If you didn't just pull a sick bag from under your desk you may be a community baker.
As you'll gather baking for the community is what I want to be doing and I continue to take baby steps towards that goal. In the meantime I'm very lucky, you see I get to fill in time in the home of good bread. When Andrew and Veronica from Bread Matters moved about four miles from my house I was stunned. What crazy world was this where a person I admired for their skill and real commitment to bettering our food system just turns up here? I had long pined after the courses on offer in Melmerby, poring over the course guide each year and imagining being able to afford to go, but never believing I'd actually meet this godfather of real bread. I'm less awed now, less fanboy at a concert more happy citizen of a diverse community that believes in the importance of bread.
I got to know Andrew and Veronica better as we worked with a community group to start a community supported bakery on Whitmuir farm. They were very real and warm. The bakery started and I worked there a few months as lead baker. But I was in the wrong place with the wrong people, and no amount of warm bread vibes could cure that. I mean it when I say make sure your whole group defines community in the same way you do, ditto radical, different and socially inclusive.
I do however spend some of my time volunteering at Bread Matters. I go in on days courses are running, usually in the morning and weigh down ingredients for the budding bakers who will arrive later. The woodfired over is snapping away as it builds heat for the baking and there is an air of quiet busyness and preparation. After weigh downs I often hoover, or peel and chop vegetables and fruit for the midday or evening meals. These jobs are no less to me than baking a loaf. They are not nothing, they are not unimportant. I enjoy cleaning the potatoes, as I scrub and peel I think about the bakers and my wish for them to feel cared for and nourished. When I wipe down oven trays I imagine the next course and want the participants to feel as if this is just for them, clean and new and ready.
I love seeing parts of the courses as they run, the people on the fundamental courses getting their hands into the dough for the first time and feeling it stick and cling, kneading (forever it seems!) and feeling the dough come alive under their hands. My favourite though is the Baking for the Community course which is running this week (tommorow is the last day). There is an energy in the room, none of the people are there to create a purely profit driven business, they believe in something more. It's a pleasure to work there listening and dreaming as loaves are kneaded, baked, discussed and tested. The business side of things investigated and digested over tea and coffees at regular intervals.
Tommorow is the team bake day. the bakers split into two teams, discuss products and decide on running orders then bake them as though in a commercial bakery situation. I think it is one of the most invaluable experiences on the course, you can tell someone how it feels to have bread overproving and nowhere to bake it, but experiencing an oven jam is more memorable (experiencing it and learning to avoid it and deal with it using timing and temperature) and visceral. It's great to see the comradeship that has built in the last few days coming together and baking. Shared bread, the baking of or the eating of brings a sense of wholeness to a group, it doesn't matter that you are very different people, the bread is there, the bread is real. Chop wood and carry water, listen to the world breathing and make some bread.
One line stuck with me, I often muttered it under my breath when having a bad moment "chop wood and carry water" it said to me "keep going, pick up your foot and take a step, keep talking and moving and you'll find a way". Bread is like that line for me, I (despite testosterone therapy) am not a born wood chopper, but I can take raw flour, water and salt and turn them into the staff of life, how much more zen can you get? In the same way that a perfectly stacked wood store is satisfying (bark up or down? pyramids or square?) the feeling of looking at racks and wires stacked with crusty, flour speckled and crackling loaves from the oven is much the same. Your hands worked it and made it and there is the product of your energies cooling and singing. They will leave your hands and be passed from person to person (in an ideal world) to the end consumer. A piece of you goes with them (ok I'm sorry, I'm sounding like a hippy here) your Will to create a wholesome bread that truly nourishes every part of a person, body and soul matters. If you didn't just pull a sick bag from under your desk you may be a community baker.
As you'll gather baking for the community is what I want to be doing and I continue to take baby steps towards that goal. In the meantime I'm very lucky, you see I get to fill in time in the home of good bread. When Andrew and Veronica from Bread Matters moved about four miles from my house I was stunned. What crazy world was this where a person I admired for their skill and real commitment to bettering our food system just turns up here? I had long pined after the courses on offer in Melmerby, poring over the course guide each year and imagining being able to afford to go, but never believing I'd actually meet this godfather of real bread. I'm less awed now, less fanboy at a concert more happy citizen of a diverse community that believes in the importance of bread.
I got to know Andrew and Veronica better as we worked with a community group to start a community supported bakery on Whitmuir farm. They were very real and warm. The bakery started and I worked there a few months as lead baker. But I was in the wrong place with the wrong people, and no amount of warm bread vibes could cure that. I mean it when I say make sure your whole group defines community in the same way you do, ditto radical, different and socially inclusive.
I do however spend some of my time volunteering at Bread Matters. I go in on days courses are running, usually in the morning and weigh down ingredients for the budding bakers who will arrive later. The woodfired over is snapping away as it builds heat for the baking and there is an air of quiet busyness and preparation. After weigh downs I often hoover, or peel and chop vegetables and fruit for the midday or evening meals. These jobs are no less to me than baking a loaf. They are not nothing, they are not unimportant. I enjoy cleaning the potatoes, as I scrub and peel I think about the bakers and my wish for them to feel cared for and nourished. When I wipe down oven trays I imagine the next course and want the participants to feel as if this is just for them, clean and new and ready.
I love seeing parts of the courses as they run, the people on the fundamental courses getting their hands into the dough for the first time and feeling it stick and cling, kneading (forever it seems!) and feeling the dough come alive under their hands. My favourite though is the Baking for the Community course which is running this week (tommorow is the last day). There is an energy in the room, none of the people are there to create a purely profit driven business, they believe in something more. It's a pleasure to work there listening and dreaming as loaves are kneaded, baked, discussed and tested. The business side of things investigated and digested over tea and coffees at regular intervals.
Tommorow is the team bake day. the bakers split into two teams, discuss products and decide on running orders then bake them as though in a commercial bakery situation. I think it is one of the most invaluable experiences on the course, you can tell someone how it feels to have bread overproving and nowhere to bake it, but experiencing an oven jam is more memorable (experiencing it and learning to avoid it and deal with it using timing and temperature) and visceral. It's great to see the comradeship that has built in the last few days coming together and baking. Shared bread, the baking of or the eating of brings a sense of wholeness to a group, it doesn't matter that you are very different people, the bread is there, the bread is real. Chop wood and carry water, listen to the world breathing and make some bread.
Friday 8 March 2013
On the end of indiegogo...
Yeah, ok, it has a few hours to run, but without a bizarre sort of miracle thing happening I'm never reaching that target. I'm sad, dissapointed, of course! who likes failing? But overall gratitude is my feeling.
Gratuitude that people took time to read and think, some people backed my project, they believed the thing I was trying to say. I'm grateful, for the chance to make that video and talk to all those people about bread, for the new connections I've made.
This afternoon I made bread, loaves of twisted tree branch sourdough country bread. Then I took two cartons of creme fraiche and churned them into slightly tangy, rich butter. I used the buttermilk for a cake for our visitors tommorow. These are the things that make me happy, they have always made me happy and I really hope that someday I'll have a chance to share that with other people.
This is not the end, just knocked back and ready for a second rise!
Gratuitude that people took time to read and think, some people backed my project, they believed the thing I was trying to say. I'm grateful, for the chance to make that video and talk to all those people about bread, for the new connections I've made.
This afternoon I made bread, loaves of twisted tree branch sourdough country bread. Then I took two cartons of creme fraiche and churned them into slightly tangy, rich butter. I used the buttermilk for a cake for our visitors tommorow. These are the things that make me happy, they have always made me happy and I really hope that someday I'll have a chance to share that with other people.
This is not the end, just knocked back and ready for a second rise!
Thursday 7 March 2013
The family meal
I was sitting in the car today, waiting for the squid (appropriately enough having a nice swim) and thinking and reading.
And I thought, I love cooking, I love taking care of people, how can I do more of that stuff? So, I've come up with this concept, The family meal. I want to host a meal, once a month for four people to come join us for dinner, nothing fancy and it's free, but it will be a family meal. I'm actually quite excited. I want to start by experimenting on folks I know then cast the net further!
Friday 1 March 2013
Gumtree and giant push!
Oh, eight days to do!! ok, so now (thank you supporters) 5% of the way, I still need 709 people to pledge £10 each, but I'm still not giving up! Today I posted a featured advert on Gumtree, you can see it here. my next plan is to contact some local radio stations/businesses.
Even if you cant pledge, please do tweet, retweet, blog and post on facebook, if my page on indiegogo gets enough movement on it they will feature it on the front page of their website (massively boosting my visibility!), this is based on my GOGO factor! which sounds fun, like perhaps it should be wearing pink fluffy boots.
Wednesday 27 February 2013
aargh, 10 days to go!
Please commence flailing around now.
No, I'm kidding I'm totallyfreaked out and panicked by calm and at ease with emailing and cold calling as many people as I can possibly think of. With ten days to run I'm 4% of the way there with funding, which is good, but it isn't enough, of course not. With all or nothing funding I'm starting to fear this could be nothing.
But even if it doesn't work I am completely determined to make this work. This is too important to just give up on, real bread is for everybody!
No, I'm kidding I'm totally
But even if it doesn't work I am completely determined to make this work. This is too important to just give up on, real bread is for everybody!
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Day two!
Plan for tommorow? a trip to Edinburgh to posterise as many places as I can find! oh, and bake some bread, sometimes it's nice to remember exactly why I love this so much.
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