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There's an Organic butter shortage. Where is all the cream going? I have no idea. But neither of my dairy distributors have Organic butter and don't anticipate restocking till fall at the earliest. The real issue here is complex supply chains, but that's a story for another day. This week, my focus was on the more immediate problem: my entire pastry lineup is butter-based. What would I bake without butter? So I dispatched my dad to Costco for a couple cases of Organic butter to hold me over, flipped through oil-based quickbreads recipes on my cookbook shelf without inspiration, and called up E for a pile of pig fat. Perhaps, I thought, I could replace one saturated fat--the commodity Organic butter, produced with cream from the Oregon "Dairy Pool," farms unknown--with another: all that hard-to-sell lard from the pastured pigs. The story below is my first attempt. I made some rookie mistakes, like not adding water to the rendering pans, but despite that ended up with passably neutral lard. That lard did not, however, make passable shortbread. The aftertaste is strange to my butter-trained palate. The texture is too crumbly. Maybe the chocolate chip hazelnut cookies will work better.         TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) - the Red & White has lost its white! I ran out of white wheat a few weeks ago and discovered, to my chagrin, that I could hardly taste the difference without it, so it's staying lost. Elwha River Spelt ($8 $7 / 720g) - Elwha River spelt is a new variety released by WSU breeders in 2014 (the year the dam came down) under the Open Source Seed Initiative. It was bred for organic, dryland (no irrigation), low input (no soil amendment) conditions. I'm excited to be using a grain so in line with my food system values, and hope that with practice I'll be able to bake you a truly spectacular dinkelbrot. In the meantime, you can watch and taste my (quite good) learning loaves at market. Today's Spelt is $1 off because it has a mystery crack in the middle. Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Cornmeal Snack Cake with Apricots & Cream! ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) NEXT WEDNESDAY PREORDER & PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red Wheat Mountain Rye Toast: SMOKY WHEAT Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES & CHOCOLATE CHIP HAZELNUT COOKIES SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 7 WEEKS REMAINING Every Wednesday, June - August Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED WHEAT Subscription - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Strawberry Rhubarb Turnover ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 8 WEEKS REMAINING Every Wednesday, June - August Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED & WHITE Subscription - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: WILD & SEEDY Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE All the way up I thought about the end of the world. The night before I’d stayed late deep cleaning the bakery and listening to Bill McKibbin talk about climate and capitalism. It was a hard story to hear. I worked till after one, went home to shower and sleep and dream apocalyptic dreams, biked my morning’s deliveries, and fled to the mountains. All the way up I thought about neoliberalism and exploitation, about inequality and power, about the ocean become desert, about atmospheric oxygen dropping, about heat and fire, rising tides and rising floodwaters, the wild gone, the animals gone, the forests gone. When my grandchildren walk this path, I thought, the mountains will still be standing, but will the trees? Will the cedars, the firs, the hemlock and spruce? What of the willow thickets, the vine maples, the red alders with their leaves wet and gleaming in the soft light? The forest, with its carpet of new green, its mossy boulders and thick ferns, its orchids and trillium, its snowmelt streams falling in white ribbons down the mountainside, was so beautiful it broke my heart. We walked in the clouds. The birds were quiet. The rain fell soft against leaves and loud against our coats. Up we walked, and up. We were wet from hats to socks despite our Gortex. When I bent down to lift the face of an orchid, water streamed from my hood. For a moment, we could see the far ridgeline though the shifting mist and trees, and then it was gone again. Somewhere up in the snowfields above treeline my mind quieted, though the climate grief remained, a familiar ache in my throat. It was colder in the open and we soon lost the trail. The snow was rotten with hidden streams. We turned and followed our footprints back to the wet, green forest. After a time the rain stopped. We walked down into sunlight. Sophie Owner | Baker  TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Rhubarb Snack Cake ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Hazelnut Shortbread ($9 / half dz) SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 9 WEEKS REMAINING Every Wednesday, June - August Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED & WHITE Subscription - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: TOASTED CORN Special guest: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE Rye friends, I managed to collapse the entire batch of Vollkornbrot. I’m sorry! If you don’t want to wait till next Saturday, I’m adding Vollkorn to this Wednesday’s bake as well. Orders due by Sunday night. Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. This also means I have 30% less bread today at market, so come early!  Quiet in the high meadows. We left the snowshoes strapped to our packs and walked out, skirting meltholes, watchful for rotten snow over the streams. The snow was wet and firm. We kicked upwards to the knob and sat to eat our lunch—sandwiches, an entire pound cake, a thermos of hot coffee—looking out at the dark firs, the shifting clouds, the brief glimpses of distant ridgeline, rocky and white and gone again. Afterwards we boot-skied down the meadows and crossed back into the forest, down from the snow and clouds and back to earth. The roar of the Nooksack rose as we descended the switchbacks, and so did the light. By the time we reached the road the forest was aglow around us: the shining leaves of the vine maples, the bright, shaggy moss, the foxglove and columbine and little white flowers in exuberant bloom. Halfway down the service road I made E stop the truck so I could stand and stare at the dazzling green. Sophie Owner | Baker  TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Raspberry Rhubarb Rye Snack Cake! ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Hazelnut Shortbread ($9 / half dz) SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 10 WEEKS REMAINING Every Wednesday*, June - August Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED & WHITE Subscription - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: BUCKWHEAT & MOLASSES Special guest: VOLLKORNBROT “This weather...” the farmer next to me started, and trailed off. “Well, at least it’s good for growing grass,” said the other. “Our pastures are doing great.” “Yeah, there is that,” said the first, sighing. But not being a farmer myself, and rather liking the way our garden has grown tangled and green, even if the tomatoes and cucumbers are lagging, I’ve enjoyed our cool, damp June. It’s quiet weather, good for reflection and growth. Biking through the low light, the warm, misting rain, the empty streets, I feel my mind, too, growing greener, spreading roots and uncurling new leaves. If you read the Herald this week, or the city’s news site, you know that the city and Lighthouse Mission Ministries are working to relocate the low barrier shelter, which has been temporarily housed in Bellingham High School, to the former Public Market on Cornwall. One of the things I’ve been thinking through on my rainy rides is my own reflexive NIMBYism. I’m ashamed to say that my first thoughts were for my business, and the space adjacent to the Public Market that I’m considering as a potential bakery location. My business is, of course, beside the point, or it’s a later point, after everyone in our community has a safe and healthy place to stay. Housing is a human right, without exception for mental health or addiction. Downtown property owners and businesses are organizing in opposition to the proposed location. Please add your voice to the conversation when the public comment period opens. $1 from every loaf of bread sold today will go to HomesNOW! The city has extended the permit for Unity Village from April 30 to 90 days after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. After the rocky end to last year, HomesNOW! is posting their monthly fiscal reports on their website. Sophie Owner | Baker  TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Sour Cherry Rhubarb Snack Cake ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Hazelnut Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Tahini Shortbread ($9 / half dz) LIMITED TEST BAKE SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 11 WEEKS REMAINING Every Wednesday*, June - August Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED & WHITE Subscription - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. Toast menu: June 3 - Summer Garden (herbs, olive oil, toasted cornmeal) June 10 - Toasted Sesame June 17 - Oat & Honey June 24 - Buckwheat & Molasses July 1 - Toasted Corn July 8 - Wild & Seedy (sunflower, sesame, flax, maybe others?) July 15 - August 26 TBD *If you're going to be away for a week, you can gift that loaf to a friend or ask to double up your order the following week. Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: OAT & HONEY Sweets: LEMON POPPY POUND CAKE TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Cornmeal Rhubarb Snack Cake ($5) Hazelnut Torte ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) SUMMBER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday*, June - August (13 weeks). Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, Fairhaven. RED & WHITE Subscription ($97.50) - wholemeal wheat table bread. MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription ($97.50) - seedy rye & wheat tinned bread. TOAST Subscription ($104) - a new type of tinned wheat bread every week. Toast menu: June 3 - Summer Garden (herbs, olive oil, toasted cornmeal) June 10 - Toasted Sesame June 17 - Oat & Honey June 24 - Buckwheat & Molasses July 1 - Toasted Corn July 8 - Wild & Seedy (sunflower, sesame, flax, maybe others?) July 15 - August 26 TBD *If you're going to be away for a week, you can gift that loaf to a friend or ask to double up your order the following week. Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: BUCKWHEAT & MOLASSES Sweets: GINGER TEA CAKE + GINGERSNAP COOKIES  Late afternoon, nine hours into Friday’s bake, I pulled the last of the bread and pastry out of the oven and thought, Ah, well, that wasn’t so bad after all. As I slid loaves onto the cooling rack I daydreamed about biking home under the open sky, about laying under the pine tree in the backyard in the golden light of evening, breathing in the day, about a good dinner. And then, of course, the bag stamping, label cutting, product bagging, label sticking, box packing, washing, sweeping, mopping, and wiping down took another six hours, and I was so tired riding home in the dark I forgot to look for stars. Still, it was a good day. A good bake, too, as you’ll find out soon enough when you come to market! See you soon. Sophie Owner | Baker TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Oat Scone with Strawberries ($5 / ea) Cornmeal Rhubarb Snack Cake ($5 / ea) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: SMOKY RYE & WHEAT Sweets: HAZELNUT BISCOTTI + LEMON POPPY POUND CAKE I always feel uneasy when new bakers ask me how to bake bread. I know what they want. They want a recipe like the ones you find in any modern cookbook, exacting and thorough, a recipe that says: mix so many ounces of flour, water, salt in this way for so many minutes; ferment for so long; shape just like this and you’re guaranteed a perfect loaf. But I can't give them a recipe. A recipe for sourdough is at best a teaching story, at worst a confusion of jargon and measurements that make baking sound more like nuclear engineering than the making of your daily bread (I’ve been guilty of the latter myself). All I can give them are approximations and metaphors: add some water, wait, and then, if you’d like, add a little more; ferment till the dough pops like rice crispies when pinched between your fingers; the bread is ready to bake when it feels light and delicate under the palm of your hand, unless it’s cold from the refrigerator, and then your guess is as good as mine. All I can tell them is to try and then try again. “When is my sourdough ready to use?” the new baker asks. “When it’s risen and just beginning to fall,” I say, and then stop to think. “But not always. That only works if it’s wet. Really, you need to taste it.” “Taste it?” says the new baker, his lip curling in mild distaste. “Yes!” Now I’m getting excited. This is a much better explanation. “Taste it! Your sourdough is ready when it’s bubbly and tastes bright sour, but not overpoweringly sour.” He stares at me in confusion. I deflate. “Well,” I say at last. “You can try dropping a spoonful in water. If it floats you know your bread will rise, eventually.” Even after six years and so many thousands—tens of thousands?—of loaves my own bread still refuses to be confined to neat recipes. Sure, I start with formulas measured out in careful grams and a fermentation schedule laid out in quarter hour intervals so I can track all my doughs across the day. But then my sourdough is young and mild so I add a bit extra to each batch; or the kitchen is warmer this week, even with the hood on, and I’m hurrying all morning to catch up; or the wheat dough I’m mixing feels different—less elastic, maybe?—so I hold back a little water, just to be safe. Even if the weather, the flour, the temperature of the water from the tap are all exactly the same from one week to the next, the doughs change. I still depend as much on intuition and attention as on those formulas and schedules. I still try, and sometimes fail, and try again. Sophie Owner | Baker   TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red & White ($7.50 / 720g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Oat Scone with Strawberries ($5 / ea) Rhubarb Cardamom Snack Cake ($5 / ea) Lemon Poppy Pound Cake ($20 / loaf) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Hazelnut Shortbread ($9 / half dz) Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red & White Mountain Rye Toast: WILD & SEEDY Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES + BLACK & WHITE SESAME CAKE |
