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When I first sent out this small ode to bicycles in the fall of 2020 a number of people very rightly pointed out that my use of the imperative implies that all people can ride a bike. There are many reasons–including physical ability, the danger and distances of roads designed for cars, and the scrabbling busyness of our daily lives–that people might not want or be able to ride. So, yes, I think that bicycles are a wonderful way to travel. And yes, we need to keep fighting for infrastructure for pedestrians, bicycles, and public transit in our cities built for cars (add your voice to the new Bellingham Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan!). And yes, until there are safe, functional ways for all of us to move under our own power or with public transit, and until our culture and economy value life over convenience, most people will drive most of the time. You should ride a bike
from Oct. 2020 I could tell you all the reasons not to drive a car. I could tell you about noise, air, and water. I could tell you about environmental justice. I could tell you about war, about fracking, about the existential threat of climate change. I could tell you about the squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, song birds, cats, and crows I pass daily, flattened on the road. Or the coyote, the beaver, the deer, and the fox laid out dead in the ditch. I could tell you about the barred owl I found yesterday on my way to work, about her soft, curled toes, her unruffled feathers, her pale face, her eyes, one closed to the sky, the other open to the pavement, unseeing. But you know those stories. And besides, a bicycle isn’t an anti-car. It needs no negative justification. You should ride a bike because it’s a delight; because your legs are strong, or will be, and feeling their power is a power in itself; because you can go so fast!; because the air above the creek is cool and wet; because on a warm night the scents bloom around you; because the sky is more beautiful than any ceiling. Riding your bike on a blue summer day is easy and sweet, but riding through a winter afternoon can be its own, uncomfortable kind of pleasure, your headlight cutting a wedge of raindrops into the dark, the wind in your face, the wet trickling cold down your collar. The comfort of the indoors is seductive, but does it make you feel alive? Does it make you laugh with wonder at the beauty of the day and your body in it? You should ride a bike because you live here, in this place, in this weather, and you cannot love it from a distance behind walls and windows. You should ride a bike just for the joy of it. Sophie Owner | Baker Years ago a friend of a friend gave me a zine he'd written about climate change and culture. I still think about it often. In it he argues that our individual actions can be meaningful when they push cultural change. For example, if I plant a vegetable garden in my suburban back yard it serves my own pleasure, health, or home economics. A vegetable garden in the front yard, when the crabgrass stretches flat and green up and down the street, is about my own life and about changing or challenging the conversation in my community. The same, I think, can be true of buying local food, giving away wealth, traveling by bicycle or public transit, paying a living wage, and all the other counter-cultural choices, small and large, that we make in the course of our busy days.
There's a story I've been told my whole life--and one that I'm still trying to unlearn--about the value of private action and conscientious consumerism. It's a dangerous story because it's allowed me to feel like I was taking meaningful action by rejecting elements of consumer culture in my own life or business without doing the more difficult and uncomfortable work of challenging the culture around me. It's not that we shouldn't be putting up solar panels or getting rid of our cars--we should!--but that those choices need to be the start of the conversation, rather than the end. All the thought and money I put into making ethical choices for this tiny business are never going to have an impact unless I can make them in a public facing way that gets other people in my local or online community to think and talk and, perhaps, to make changes of their own. I need to plant my gardens on the street. Sophie Owner | Baker
I’m learning how to darn. So far I’ve inexpertly managed a few flat mends; I have yet to attempt anything advanced like sock heels or cuffs. My foray into darning was inspired by a book I picked up a few months ago from the library--Mending Life, by sisters Sonya and Nina Montenegro—which is both a practical introduction to mending clothes and an exploration of mending as a practice of healing and restoration. I returned the book weeks ago, but both its simple darning instructions and the idea that mending clothes could be an expression of a larger ethic have stuck in my mind. What if caring for everyday objects, for people, for our communities, for land and water here and everywhere are tangled vines growing from the same roots? “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard wrote. “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” I don’t think darning a hole in a sweater takes the place of political action, or that individual action can change systemic problems, but maybe caring for household goods is one way to appreciate the material gifts of our daily lives—the food, clothing, and objects—and our responsibility to them. Maybe mending can be a small medicine for the large hurt of living in a culture of extraction and consumption. Sophie Owner | Baker
 There’s nothing fancy about this pie. No elaborate spice blend. No family secrets. Just very good ingredients put together into a very good pastry. That fantastically flaky crust is made with a blend of wholemeal spelt & buckwheat from Fairhaven Mill, organic butter, and lard rendered from Well Fed Farms pastured pigs. The filling is a mix of interesting apples gleaned from 19th century orchard remnants around Bellingham, with just enough butter and sugar to round out their flavor, and a splash of cider vinegar made from the bakery’s apple scraps. You can order pie, among other things, in the online store. Orders due by Sunday night. Self-serve pickup next Wednesday in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, or Fairhaven. In thanks for the abundant land we live on and in acknowledgement of violence and coercion of the Point Elliott Treaty, 10% of Wednesday’s sales will go to the Lhaq'temish Foundation. Sophie Owner | Baker  P.S. If pie is too sweet for your taste, here's a Black Friday rant from a couple years ago. TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) Sourdough Stuffing ($6) SWEETS: Gingerbread Cake ($6) - There was massive and inexplicable cake collapse. The gingerbread supply is limited today. Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) MENU for WEDNESDAY, NOV 25 Order by Sunday night for pickup the following Wednesday. Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g, $15 / 1.5kg) Mountain Rye, cut or whole ($7.50 / 750g, $22.50 / 2.3kg) Rosemary Cornmeal "Toast" ($8 / 750g) Gingerbread ($16 / serves 3-4) Heirloom Apple Pie ($30 / serves 6) Cookies: Chocolate Chip Hazelnut, Bittersweet Chocolate, or Gingersnap ($15 / 6) Does it matter if we ride the bus, build a free library, buy goods from our neighbors instead of corporations, plant trees? Does it matter if we learn, protest, organize, vote, make art, donate our time and money? Does it matter if we shout our rage and grief for imperfect world we have and the imperfect world we’re making? No. You and I are two of eight billion. Yes. Individual action matters when it helps bend society towards change. Thank you for being good neighbors. Thank you for standing up, speaking out, and reaching for change. Thank you for living out loud and joyfully. It’s a beautiful morning at the beginning of a beautiful day and I’m going to spend it out with friends in the hills and fields and quiet. Enjoy the day and the market. It’s Hannah’s birthday, so be sure to wish her happy when you stop by the stand! Sophie Owner | Baker  A quiet place this past summer. P.S. As often happens when I’m filled with big emotions, I’ve been thinking these past anxious days about poetry. Here, if you’d like them, are two that read for me like a deep breath: an old favorite from William Stafford and a new favorite from Ada Limón. TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave With the changing season and new flour and I've been struggling to keep my fermentation on schedule. There are a lot of loaves with holes in them today, and even more loaves that might have holes (I had to stop cutting them in half to find out before I cut them all). Both--holed and possibly holed or whole loaves--are $6.50. BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) Bread 2nds ($6.50) SWEETS: Gingerbread Cake ($6-$16) Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)  Red Wheat with a hole in the middle FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS Order for the coming Wednesday or sign up for all the remaining Wednesdays through Dec 16. Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week Nov 11 - Toasted Sesame Nov 18 - Oat & Honey Nov 25 - Rosemary Cornmeal Dec - TBD The national race may be a foregone conclusion in most states, but LOCAL ELECTIONS MATTER. If you're a citizen living in Washington State, you should have already received your ballot. Fill it out! Mail it in or drop it off at your local ballot box! If you haven't yet registered to vote, it's not too late: you can register to vote online until Monday, Oct 26, and in person at your County Election Office until Nov 3. Because too many states don't have electoral systems as free and fair as ours, 25% of today's VOTE bread sales will go to Fair Fight, the organization Stacy Abrams founded to protect the right to vote in Georgia and across the country. VOTE breads include the tinned wheat, which stenciled quite well, and the spelt, which (unintentionally) cracked under pressure like our fragile democratic system. Bellingham Farmers Market, 10-2. Sophie Owner | Baker   TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingerbread Cake ($6) Lardy Apple Turnover ($6) Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS Order for the coming Wednesday or sign up for all the remaining Wednesdays through Dec 16. Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week Oct 28 - Baked Apple Nov 4 - Corn & Molasses Nov 11 - Toasted Sesame Nov 18 - Oat & Honey Nov 25 - Rosemary Cornmeal Dec - TBD E tells me pig fat is hard to sell. People love bacon, not backfat. After taking up walkin space for a year a lot of it ends up, eventually, in the compost. Well, pig eaters, I'm here to report that you don't need leaf lard for sweet pastry. Even backfat lard, when tempered with butter, will do very well. My early experiments in 100% lard pastry were too much, but today's lard and butter turnover crust is pretty much perfect. If you don't believe me, go try an apple turnover for yourself. Sophie Owner | Baker  TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: The Most Apple Cake ($5) Lardy Apple Turnover ($6) Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 9 weeks remaining Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week 10/21 - Multicereal 10/28 - Baked Apple Nov - Dec TBD I could tell you all the reasons not to drive a car. I could tell you about noise, air, and water. I could tell you about environmental justice. I could tell you about oil wars, about fracking, about the existential threat of climate change. I could tell you about the squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, song birds, cats, and crows I pass daily, flattened on the road. Or the coyote, the beaver, the deer, and the fox laid out dead in the ditch. I could tell you about the barred owl I found yesterday on my way to work, about her soft, curled toes, her unruffled feathers, her pale face, her eyes, one closed to the sky, the other open to the pavement, unseeing. But you know those stories. And besides, a bicycle isn’t an anti-car. It needs no negative justification. You should ride a bike* because it’s a delight; because your quads are strong, or will be, and feeling their power is a power in itself; because you can go so fast!; because the air above the creek is cool and wet; because on a warm night the scents bloom around you; because the sky is more beautiful than any ceiling. Riding your bike on a blue summer day is easy and sweet, but riding through a winter afternoon can be its own, uncomfortable kind of pleasure, your headlight cutting a wedge of raindrops into the dark, the wind in your face, the wet trickling cold down your collar. The comfort of the indoors is seductive, but does it make you feel alive? Does it make you laugh with wonder at the beauty of the day and your body moving through it? You should ride a bike because you live here, in this place, in this weather, and you cannot love it from a distance, behind walls and windows. You should ride a bike just the joy of it.  * This imperative comes with qualifications: bicycles aren't accessible to everyone; good public transit is also essential. TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: The Most Apple Cake ($5) made with rye and buckwheat and more apple than batter. Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION / WEEKLY PREORDERS Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 10 weeks remaining Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week 10/14 - Rosemary Cornmeal 10/21 - Multicereal 10/28 - Baked Apple Nov - Dec TBD In the spring, when the fields were just greening, I took Erik and a friend on a field trip to the border to visit Kevin TeVelde, master tractor mechanic and farmer of all the rye and pastry wheat used at Raven Breads. We talked a little about grains and a lot about machines. Kevin loves tractors. A few months later Erik bought one of the old combines, an Allis Chalmers Gleaner F. This fall or next spring he’ll plant grain alongside his row crops and pastured livestock. At the end of August we biked out to Lopez for a tiny, midweek vacation. The first day we slept and ate and slept again, a farmer and a baker stomped flat by summer work. The second day, refreshed, we walked down the road to Horse Drawn Farm where Nathan, the co-owner of Barn Owl Bakery, was tinkering with his combine at the edge of the rye field. Erik stepped up to talk mechanics while I stepped back and let the talk of belts and alignments roll over me, admiring the fields, the bright sky, the men talking over the machine.  Nathan, Erik, and Stephen (?) talking mechanics at the edge of the rye field at Horse Drawn Farm. On our way off island we rode by Barn Owl to pick up a bag of flour, a blend of Lopez grown Fortuna, Chiddam, and Selkirk wheats from the 2019 harvest. The air was clear, the sky was a dazzling blue. It’s hard now, on this dim, smoky morning to remember the world in such intense colors, just as it’s hard to remember the looming devastation of climate change on a perfect, blue summer day. In this warming world we need local food economies more than ever. We need their human scale and resilience. We need food that builds up, rather than exploits the land and the people who work it. The flour was a gift, and so the bread I baked with it for today’s market will also be a gift. All the proceeds from its sale will go to Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad, a worker-owned farm cooperative founded by leaders of the farmworker struggle at Sakuma Berry Farm. Sophie Owner | Baker FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 14 weeks remaining Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week 9/16 - Polenta 9/23 - Buckwheat & Molasses 9/30 - Wild & Seedy 10/7 - Roasted Squash 10/14 - Rosemary Cornmeal 10/21 - Multicereal 10/28 - Baked Apple Nov - Dec TBD TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) Lopez Island Wheat ($9 / 720g) - all proceeds to Cooperative Tierra y Libertad SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Snack Cake: Apple Pear ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) NEXT WEDNESDAY PREORDER & PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red Wheat Mountain Rye Toast: POLENTA Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES & CHOCOLATE CHIP HAZELNUT COOKIES How’s that for a clickbait subject line? See, I am learning how to use the internet properly, if with some reluctance. I’m not actually giving up on Organic ingredients, but I do find that as my knowledge of the food system deepens, I’m more interested in relationships, in short, transparent supply chains, than I am in certification stickers. Certifications like USDA Organic or Fair Trade are useful if you don’t know your producers, and I’ll continue to prioritize them for ingredients I can’t buy directly, but Organic doesn’t mean sustainable or just. Plenty of farms follow the letter of the environmental regulations rather than the spirit, and, more importantly, Organic certification doesn’t regulate labor practices. Given the social-racial-economic-environmental justice disaster that is U.S. farm labor, this is an unconscionable omission. When we choose what ingredients to buy for the bakery, the thought process goes something like this:
The current results, imperfect but ever-improving, are as follows: BUTTER: Organic, cultured cream, domestic not local. Usually from Oregon. EGGS: pastured year-round, non GM feed, not certified Organic. Broad Leaf Farm (Whatcom), Osprey Hill Farm (Whatcom), Foothills Farm (Skagit), or Well Fed Farms (Skagit). FLOUR + GRAINS: USDA Organic. Fairhaven Flour Mill (Skagit).
HERBS: The garden. HONEY: BeeWorks Farm (Whatcom), The Valley’s Buzz (Skagit). MILK & CREAM: Twin Brook Creamery (pastured, not Organic), Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy. NUTS: Holmquist Hazelnuts. SEEDS & SWEETENERS: Seeds all Organic. Tropical products (chocolate, sugar, etc.) Fair Trade certified and/or bought by the distributor directly from farmers or coops. Distributor: Hummingbird Wholesale (Oregon). SPICES: Some certified Organic and/or Fair Trade, some not. All direct contracted from small farmers around the world by Burlap & Barrel, Singing Dog Vanilla, Red Ape Cinnamon. SALT: Commodity sea salt. See you soon. Sophie Owner | Baker P.S. Just to put it out there: I’ve thought for years about creating a map tracing every ingredient I use from farm to bakery. I’ve been picturing this as a totally low tech pin & string map, but if you know of any students looking for an in depth study of one small corner of the food system, perhaps it could be digital? FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 15 weeks remaining Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription - a new tinned loaf every week 9/2 - Oat & Honey 9/9 - Toasted Sesame 9/16 - Polenta 9/23 - Buckwheat & Molasses 9/30 - Wild & Seedy Oct-Dec TBD TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) *tinned or hearth loaf! Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Snack Cake: Nectarine Peach or Apple ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) NEXT WEDNESDAY PREORDER & PICKUP Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, and Fairhaven. Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning. Order by Sunday night. Red Wheat Mountain Rye Toast: TOASTED SESAME Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES & CHOCOLATE CHIP HAZELNUT COOKIES |
