 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) 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 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 |