 The days grow shorter. I rode home from the bakery in the dark. Past the bridge the smell of blackberries was sweet and strong enough to taste. I left my bike leaning against a post and found the thicket by helmet light. The berries were fat and shining. I ate all I could reach.
Next week we'll have blackberry snack cake. This week the cakes are full of blueberries and raspberries from Broadleaf Farm and nectarines from Martin Family Orchards. Sophie Owner | Baker  The figs are done, the blackberries sour with rain and cool weather. But the prune plums are ripe, purple skins dusted with yeast and insides a delightful, juicy yellow. I’ve been running our dehydrator for a week drying down my first harvest, one batch after another. The early saucing apples are near their end, the denser fall apples starting to sweeten. I’ve seen pears beginning to drop on my rides through the city and grapes darkening with color. This is the most bountiful time of year for a gleaner. In city parks, alleys, the edges of parking lots and along parking strips, in private gardens, there’s fruit ripening. Everywhere, fruit. Don’t be afraid to knock on your neighbors' doors and ask to scramble up their trees. The worst that will happen is baffled rejection. The best, a winter larder stocked with sunshine. This week’s snack cake is made with our Gravensteins and an earthy mix of buckwheat and rye. The oat scones are contrasting tender, sweet pastry with tart, juicy plums. There’s an apple rye bread coming up in the Fall Bread Subscription and I’ve been wondering about grape pastries. Soon it will be time for gingerbread cake. I’ve put up ten gallons of apple sauce so far in preparation. And now it's time to make toast and perhaps one last cup of coffee, pack up my panniers, and ride home from the farm before Chuckanut gets too busy. I'll see you at market in a few hours! Sophie Owner | Baker  Rye & Buckwheat Apple Snack Cake Along the roadsides and southern hills the blackberries are ripe. They hang fat and gleaming in the sun, tempting passing cyclists. This time of year you’ll often see me at the side of the road or pulled up on the sidewalk, bicycle discarded, hands scratched and lips purple, mouth full of sunshine. A perfectly ripe blackberry is plump and firm between your finger tips. It separates from the stem with the gentlest tug. The attachment point is clean white. Press it between your tongue and palate and it dissolves with the sweet, dark taste of summer. For baking, though, you want sour with your sweet. Pick your berries a little firmer, a little less glossy. They separate with a twist and a snap so soft you feel it in your fingers more than hear it. I rode back from the commissary late on Thursday. The sun had set, the sky ahead fading orange to green to white. At home, I pulled double-kneed canvas pants out of my pannier and on over my shorts, zipped my dad’s old hickory striped work shirt over my tank top, and switched my sandals for the boots just inside the door, not bothering with socks. I walked to the bottom of the garden. I was still wearing my helmet with its mounted light. The wall of brambles rose in front of me. I could hear a small creature scurrying underneath, the roar of the telephone pole factory like an airplane taking off, cars on the road behind me. On the other side of the hedge the neighbor’s dog stirred and growled on its chain. I pushed into the thorns, using the protection of pants and boots to reach deeper. The blackberries gleamed in the white light of my helmet. I filled one half flat and another till I had enough for the market bake. Then I picked up my boxes, turned off my light, and walked back to the house in the dark.  Daytime harvest It’s late after a long, hot day of baking. The sky is softening gray. I’m tired and sweaty and hungry, but before I can go home to cook dinner I need five kilos of fruit.
There’s a sour cherry tree at the edge of a parking lot not far from the commissary. Maybe someone planted a food garden there once, but now the tree is part of the ornamental landscaping. I’ve never seen anyone pick its fruit but the birds and, once, an old Russian woman who told me she ate her cherries with rice. The tree is loaded this year. I scramble up. The branches are tight and thin, tugging at my ballcap and pulling strands from my braid. I wedge a foot into a fork in the trunk, brace myself against a branch, and begin. If I squeeze the cherries just right, first finger and thumb pinching the top curve, they pop off their pits. It’s messier than picking whole fruit but will save me the time pitting later in the hot kitchen. I drop them, hollowed and dripping, into my bucket. The juice splatters my glasses. I lick my cheek and taste cherry. When I reach above me juice runs down my arm to my armpit, soaking the side of my shirt. It drips between my breasts. The oven burn on my wrist stings. When the cord begins to bite into the back of my neck, I climb down and empty my bucket. The insides of my elbows and the backs of my knees stick together as I move. I climb back into the nest of branches. People walk by on the sidewalk below me. Cars pass. No one looks up. With the second bucket full, I untangle myself from the tree and climb down. I’m a mess, dripping with cherry juice, bits of dried stamen and lichen speckling my arms, my throat, my chest and legs. My hair is half out of its braid, sticking to my cheeks. I walk back to the kitchen with a bucket heavy in each hand. I spread the cherries on trays in the freezer so they won’t brown overnight, wash my arms and face in the vegetable sink, and pull my hair back with clean hands. I ride home. The western sky is pale with sunset, the east darkening towards night. Sophie Owner | Baker  Rain last night, and this morning the tops of the cedars are blurred by clouds. It’s officially spring, if not by the Julian calendar than by the forest: the nettles are up. Out past the back fence, past the thickets of rose and ironwood and the fallen willow, past the cedars and the cairn that marks the grave of Loki the dog, there’s a stand of alder. In the summer it’s all nettles, so thick you have to whack and high-step your way through and still you’ll emerge with ankles tingling. But right now the nettles are just a few leaves tall and tender, pushing up from the moss in patches. We had one pair of gloves between us; I took the right and E the left. I was clumsy at it, despite using my dominant hand, and kept accidentally pulling up the little plants when I meant only to pinch off their top leaves. E, being a farmer and much practiced at harvest, was quick and tidy. And if his bag was twice mine when we walked back through the moss and alders, past the cairn under the cedars, by the fallen willow and the thickets of the rose and ironwood, and through the back gate, well, everything went into the same pot in the end.
Sophie Owner | Baker This newsletter was first published on July 22, 2017. The seasons turn, and it's as true today as it was three years ago.  Riding down alleys and along side streets, cutting across parking lots and over sidewalks, I learn the city's bounty. All year I scout the possibilities along my bicycle lines, and come summer, I'm knocking on doors and scrambling up trees, chasing the harvest. Most people have little interest in food preservation, and even a dwarf tree can produce more fruit than a family can eat out of hand without the season extending help of canning, drying, freezing, or pressing into cider. Perhaps they take a bowl of cherries to the office, or make a few apple pies, but most of the harvest is left to fall. As the year turns, the sidewalks and alleys are smeared with plums and bruised apples; figs split open in the sun, swarming with wasps; squirrels secret away the green nuts. These streets hold such uncelebrated abundance. There's fruit ripe for the picking in backyards, in the last remnants of century-old orchards along the forgotten edges of housing developments, in the landscaping of parking strips, and in the thorny banks of Himalayan blackberries overrunning every open and disturbed piece of ground. There is enough here to fill a pantry, and I do: apples pressed into cider and cooked into sauce, plums and figs dried, pears poached and tucked into jars, quince slow-roasted to jewel-toned membrillo. The task of saving a city’s worth of fruit is overwhelming and, of course, impossible, but still, each year I try, loading the back of my bicycle with boxes of sticky gleanings and staying up late into the night, saving the season. Sophie Owner | Baker FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 16 weeks / 16 loaves Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription ($120) - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription ($120) - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription ($128) - 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) Blackberry Apple Snack Cake ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)  Blackberry Apple Snack Cake, made with wheat, oats, buckwheat, and corn. 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 Rain, and underneath the faint smell of decay. Fall is coming. I pulled the down comforter out of the cupboard last night, though I didn’t use it. I feel an animal urgency to put up the summer’s bounty against the coming dark. I want more time to go stomping through the blackberry brambles and scrambling up fruit trees, more time to gather and glean, to process, ferment, dehydrate, and can, but time is always short in the long days of summer. There’s bread to bake and deliver, and more bread after that. So if your garden is too much, if the figs are dripping with wasps or the apples dropping or the grapes rotting on the vine, perhaps we can barter bread for fruit? Or you could take a jam tithe. That would work, too. Sophie Owner | Baker  FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 16 weeks / 16 loaves Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven RED WHEAT Subscription ($120) - whole wheat table bread MOUNTAIN RYE Subscription ($120) - seedy rye & wheat TOAST Subscription ($128) - 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) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) *Small batch this week. Come early. 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) Blackberry / Peach Snack Cake ($5) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz) “Are they ripe?” a walker asks, stepping around my parked bicycle and out into the street to pass me in a wide arc. The brambles along this sunny road are heavy with dark, gleaming berries. Riding out this morning on deliveries their fragrance pulled at me, lush and nostalgic. I resisted until I’d made the last drop. Now I’m standing in the dry grass, right up against the thicket, an empty delivery box at my feet. Already my legs are scratched and my braid pulled loose by the thorns. My hands are sticky, my mouth stained dark. The berries make a satisfying thump as I drop them into the box. I look over my shoulder at the walker. Can’t she see how fat the berries have grown this last week? Can’t she smell them, sunhot and sweet? How can she walk this way without gorging herself? I smile. “Yes,” I tell her. “They’re ripe.” 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: Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Olive Oil Tea Cake ($5) with too much zucchini & blackberry (it's hard to practice moderation in the face of summer abundance). 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: WILD & SEEDY Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES & CHOCOLATE CHIP HAZELNUT COOKIES        How could I resist? They taste like baked apples.Check the social media tomorrow for pictures of the winter apple rye bread that's currently rising on the counter beside me in a dish towel lined bowl. And in the meantime, here's the recipe, made fresh this morning, so you, too, can warm your home with a good, hearty bread. Sophie Owner | Baker WINTER APPLE RYE makes 1 large or 2 small loaves PREFERMENT 150 g warm water 150 g ryemeal 10 g sourdough Mix together and leave overnight (10-16 hours) in a warm place, until the mix has a strong, pleasantly sour taste. FINAL DOUGH 275 g water, hot from the tap 350 g ryemeal 10 g salt 500 g apples, chopped or grated all the preferment (optional: a handful of toasted, chopped walnuts) (optional: a handful of raisins or other dried fruit) Mix all the ingredients together. Scoop into an oiled tin or a well floured basket. Proof until the dough is expanded and cracking and feels fragile when pressed (3 to 6 hours, depending on the temperature of your dough and home). Before the loaf has fully risen, preheat your oven all the way up. Bake hot for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 325F and bake for another 75 minutes, or until a thermometer in the bottom of the loaf reads 200F. Let cool completely before slicing. The WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION starts January 22 and runs for 10 weeks through March 25. Pickup in Birchwood (the front step), Downtown (Cafe Velo), or in Fairhaven (Shirlee Bird Cafe). Sign up ONLINE. RED & WHITE subscription ($70) MOUNTAIN RYE subscription ($70) BAKER's CHOICE subscription ($80) BAKER's CHOICE menu: all rye all winter long! Jan 22: Rugbrod Jan 29: Ring Rye Feb 5: Apple Rye Feb 12: Harvest Miche 1 Feb 19: Harvest Miche 2 Feb 26: Black Bread March 4: Alpine Spice Rye March 11: Rye & Oat March 18: Korn Rye or Corn Rye?? March 25: Westphalian Pumpernickel! Today is the last day of summer, and it promises to be a decidedly unsummerlike day. I woke in the dark to the sound of wind, where a month ago I would have woken in the cool, white light of dawn. There’s rain in the forecast. For weeks I’ve been gathering in the last of the sun’s gifts: plums from the back alleys, rosemary from my grandmother’s garden, tomatoes, apples and pears, blue fenugreek, and grapes. The back porch is a chaos of canning supplies, dehydrators, harvest totes, dried herbs waiting to be stripped of leaves, dried flower heads waiting to be stripped of seeds, unripe tomatoes pulled reluctantly from the garden, fermenting crocks, and empty glass jars. This is the bulwark of flavor I build every year against the coming dark. See you soon. Sophie Owner | Baker TODAY AT MARKET Red & White + Oat & Honey Mountain Rye + Vollkornbrot Chocolate Malt Chocolate Chip Cookies Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies Harvest Cookies Oatmeal Scone Apple Cake Shortbread WEDNESDAY BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Blue Corn Nixtamal Mountain Rye |