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Nothing new this week, but here's an interview I did on business and capitalism that went up last week on the Institute for Washington's Future and a newsletter reprint from December, 2017. How to love the sky in winter Here is my hypothesis: it isn’t the gray that makes our winters feel oppressive, it’s our built environment. If you spend your days working in an office from dark to dark, or tucked away in your house, hiding from the rain, these short, wet days are grim indeed. And when the sky presses low, as the asphalt presses up, and the walls of brick and stone and wood close in from all sides, I too feel trapped. But that, I think, is the fault of the asphalt and walls, and not the sky. On wild winter days, when the wind blows hard and the rain comes down sideways and the damp cold slides deep into you and settles there to wait for spring, the city is a miserable place to be. But go out walking on the beach, along the dark strip of pebbles between seaweed and driftwood. Turn up your collar and lean into the wind till your eyes tear and your cheeks flush. Breath in the cold and brine. The sea is violent and alive, white caps racing for shore. The beach is strewn with treasures. Or trash. Bring a bag to collect the storm’s flotsam, whatever it may be. And when the storm lifts, and the clouds race over you—altocumulus over cumulus, and the brief glimpse of the cirrus high above—those are the days for open spaces. The brown, stubbled fields of the Skagit Flats have their own, subtle beauty in winter, and above them, the sky is wide and bright, even on an overcast day. But best of all are the low, gray days with their steady rain. In the city, the nimbostratus is a dull blanket, the rain inexhaustible and exhausting. But go out walking in the woods. Find old woods, if you can, with Douglas firs and red cedars wider than your outstretched arms, and an open understory. Layer up with wool and leave your rain coat behind. It’s hardly raining under the trees, more a dripping mist, and the plastic is loud. Without it, you can hear the forest: rain hitting the leaves of sword ferns, the wind breathing through the trees, and off and above, a raven chuckling. The low clouds catch on the hills and treetops, pooling and whisping away. If you stand still, in just the right place, you might even have a moment alone with the forest, no freeway rumble or flyover, no stereo boom or human voices, just the wind and rain moving over the landscape, and the quiet sound of your own breathing.  WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION 10 Weeks, every Wednesday Jan 27 - Mar 31 Pickups probably: Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Fairhaven (open to adding more neighborhoods west of the freeway if you have a good porch!) TINNED RED WHEAT subscription ($75) - An excellent all-purpose wheat. (Switching from hearth to tinned for the winter because we'll only be baking once a week and tinned loaves have better keeping quality). MOUNTAIN RYE subscription ($80) - The classic seedy rye & wheat. BAKER's CHOICE subscription ($80) - A new rye every week, some old favorites and some we have yet to invent. The likely lineup: Jan 27 - Rugbrod Feb 3 - Gingerbread Rye Feb 10 - Ring Rye Feb 17 - Apple Rye Feb 24 - Miche Mar 3 - Alpine Spice Rye Mar 10 - Smoky Vollkornbrot Mar 17 - Root Cellar Rye Mar 24 - Honey & Spice Mar 31 - Westphalian Pumpernickel Foggy again this morning, and I hope whatever your day holds you have a few minutes to sit quietly with your coffee and watch the world outside lighten blue to gray. Moments like this I wish I still had a child’s understanding of magic. There must be secrets hidden in the fog, doorways between the ghost trees that open to other worlds if only I weren’t too blinded by the mundane realities of adult life to see them. Up in the mountains it's probably dawning bright, sunlight catching the deep red huckleberries, the larches aflame under a white blue sky. Last Sunday we walked Cutthroat. The colors and textures, the geology and botany are so beautifully different from those of the Western slope: pink granite and the soil pink with its sediment, thin forests of lodgepole, fir, and spruce, golden willows and golden larches.. There was snow dusting the ridge line. The sky moved fast: clear, then fat cumulonimbus sailing across the blue, thickening to full cloud cover that caught on the peaks, pouring over their rocky spines, then high, flat gray, and blue again.   We have lots of lovely baked goods for you this morning, whether you're spending the day in fog or sky. Hannah will be at market from 10 to 2, and I'll probably swing by on my ride south to Skagit. Maybe I'll see you there! Sophie Owner | Baker TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER 10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave BREAD: Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g) (Tinned Red Wheat 2nds with a hole in the middle ($6)) Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g) Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g) Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g) Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g) SWEETS: The Last Plum Torte with cornmeal & rosemary ($5) Apple Turnovers ($6) with a wheat/rye/buckwheat crust made with organic cultured butter AND lard from Well Fed Farms pastured pigs. Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2) Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2) Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2) Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)  Lardy pigs at Well Fed Farms earlier this year. FALL BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Every Wednesday Sept 2 - Dec 16 11 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 10/7 - Roasted Squash 10/14 - Rosemary Cornmeal 10/21 - Multicereal 10/28 - Baked Apple Nov - Dec TBD 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: ROASTED SQUASH Sweets: BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE COOKIES & CHOCOLATE CHIP HAZELNUT COOKIES Getting towards dusk and the sky is a crow highway. They fly over in twos and twenties, dropping south, wing-beating, gliding, dipping and rolling like ravens. They’re gathering at the old boat house where they strut and hop over the lawn, blacken the trees, fluff and shake in the shallows. The sky is dream blue: pale and streaked white yellow purple with thin clouds. To the north and east, the mountains glow. The ducks are rafted up on the lake, the stragglers flying in low and hard, skidding to a bright spray stop on the water. There’s a single cormorant standing in black silhouette above a white buoy, and here, on the snag exposed by the winter-low water, a stiff-legged painted turtle immobilized by the cold. All the way home I’m running against traffic, northbound as the crows fly south in the lowering dark. Sophie Owner | Baker 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! And then the storm was on top of me. The power went out. I sat on the front porch and watched the lightning cut white though the sky. Thunder rolled over me, light and noise and the house trembling all at once. Afterwards, quiet, and I was laughing with joy, alone in the dark. Sophie Owner | Baker TODAY AT MARKET Red & White Oat & Honey Mountain Rye Vollkornbrot Seedy Buckwheat Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie Gingersnap Oat Scone Gleaner's Apple Pie Shortbread Buckwheat Crisps This week in the Bread Subscription Red & White Mountain Rye Baker's Choice: RUGBROD After the holidays, after the lights, the rooms warm with friends and family, after the gifts, after the tamales and pozole, the roast beef, ragu, and rugelach, the gingerbread and gingersnaps, after eating and eating and eating, I step out into the world. It’s mid afternoon. Damp cold. The sky mottled gray. I start slowly, moving awake after days glutted on food, books, and sleep. The muddy track along the lakeside is quiet. Under the car rumble, I can hear the waves lapping. They roll towards shore from two directions, crossing at a wide angle. Each facet of the water’s surface reflects a different sky. For a while, I stand watching the water, trying to catch the shifting pattern; it eludes me. I run on, under the gray sky, along the gray water, through the lowering dark. I cross a hillside of waterbirds probing the grass. The ducks lift off before me in waves. The geese keep eating, unperturbed. I take the long stairs up from the lake two at a time. One flight after the next. I reach the top gasping, sweating, calves tingling, thighs trembling, face flushed, cold fingers fisted, feet fumbling for the last step. I am wholely alive. Every corner of my body is awake. This is a gift I try to remember: legs and lungs that move me through the world, arms that lift and carry, hands as competent to mix dough as they are to hold a pen. I am glad to have work that demands mind and body both, glad too to live in a community whose support lets me turn that work into a livelihood. Thank you. The bakery is growing steadily, straining the seams of the shoestring operation I’ve been running for the past four years. I have you to thank for that, as well. Because of that growth, I’ve been able to double my donations this year from one percent of sales to two percent. A small change, but a step in the right direction. And because of that growth, I’ll spend the winter planning how to build my bakery dreams into brick and mortar reality. I’ve passed enough hours staring out over the water, watching the light and writing stories in my head. It’s time to run. Happy almost New Year. Sophie Owner | Baker WEDNESDAY BREAD Order by Sunday night to pick up Wednesday, Jan 2 Red & White Mountain Rye Broa Milho Honey & Spice (pain d'epices) WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION Sign up to get a loaf every Wedneday, January 2 - March 6 RED & WHITE subscription MOUNTAIN RYE subscription BAKER's CHOICE subscription: 10 weeks, 10 ryes I get caught in the routine of my life. It’s a good routine, bounded by meaningful work, extravagant dinner parties, and too many books. What gaps there are are easily filled by the endless backlog of projects: harvesting and putting up fruit, readying the garden for winter, researching breads, business planning, house chores, etc. There’s always more to do, as you well know. No need to look elsewhere for ways to fill the hours. And so it is a startling pleasure to step out of routine and into the wider world, like stepping out into sunshine after a day spent indoors. Last Saturday a friend texted just as market was ending to ask if I wanted to canoe the Nooksack delta. I usually turn down Saturday night invitations out of hand: parties, dancing, films, none can compete with the lure of a quiet evening at home. As market ends, I’m daydreaming about unfolding a heavy wool blanket under the long-needled pine in the back yard and sitting there with a book, notebook, and pen, with the smell of dry forest around me and the tree above, till the dark or cold force me inside. But the delta. All that sky and smooth water. That was different. “Yes,” I wrote back, ignoring the next customer. “What time do you want to leave?” We parked by the side of the road and carried the canoe past No Trespassing signs and into the lazy river. The water slid, green and sunlit, between alder and willow. Ducks flew up before us. A beaver watched us pass, slipping silently under water when we circled back for another look. I listened to the dip of our paddles, the beating of duck wings, and the distant sound of airplanes. When the forest opened into the delta it was almost sunset. The water was a glossy mirror to the sky. Here, a ten minute drive and a quick paddle from my house, with Bellingham just across the bay, we looked out towards Lummi, over luminous water under a luminous sky, and the whole world was made of light. This was better than any book under the pine tree. Better, even, than coming home to dinner on the table and a house full of friends. The delta filled me like a deep breath, and when I exhaled, the light remained.  See you soon. Sophie Owner | Baker TODAY AT MARKET Red & White Oat & Honey Mountain Rye + Vollkornbrot Chocolate Malt Chocolate Chip Cookie Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie Oatmeal Scone Buckwheat Scone Apple & Cream Cake Brown Butter + Nibby Buckwheat Shortbread WEDNESDAY BREAD SUBSCRIPTION (Pick up bread every Wednesday Sept 5 - Nov 21. Sign up anytime.) Toasted Sesame Mountain Rye Here is my hypothesis: it isn’t the gray that makes our winters feel oppressive, it’s the built environment. If you spend your days working in an office from dark to dark, or tucked away in your house, hiding from the rain, these short, wet days are grim indeed. And when the sky presses low, as the asphalt presses up, and the walls of brick and stone and wood close in from all sides, I too feel trapped. But that, I think, is the fault of the asphalt and walls, and not the sky. On wild winter days, when the wind blows hard, and the rain comes down sideways, and the damp cold slides deep into you and settles there to wait for spring, the city is a miserable place to be. But go out walking on the beach, along the dark strip of pebbles between seaweed and driftwood. Turn up your collar and lean into the wind, till your eyes tear and your cheeks flush. Breath in the cold and brine. The sea is violent and alive, white caps racing for shore. The beach is strewn with treasures. Or trash. Bring a bag to collect the storm’s flotsam, whatever it may be. And when the storm lifts, and the clouds race over you—altocumulus over cumulus, and the brief glimpse of the cirrus high above—those are the days for open spaces. The brown, stubbled fields of the Skagit Flats have their own, subtle beauty in winter, and above them, the sky is wide and bright, even on an overcast day. But best of all are the low, gray days, with their steady rain. In the city, the nimbostratus is a dull blanket, the rain inexhaustible and exhausting. But go out walking in the woods. Find old woods, if you can, with Douglas firs and red cedars wider than your outstretched arms, and an open understory. Layer up with wool, and leave your rain coat behind. It’s hardly raining under the trees, more a dripping mist, and the plastic is loud. Without it, you can hear the forest: rain hitting the leaves of sword ferns, the wind breathing through the trees, and off and above, a raven chuckling. The low clouds catch on the hills and treetops, pooling and whisping away. If you stand still, in just the right place, you might even have a moment alone with the forest, no freeway rumble or flyover, no stereo boom or human voices, just the wind and rain moving over the landscape, and the quiet sound of your own breathing. Saturday Market Red & White, Mountain Rye, Vollkornbrot Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Apple Cakes (two kinds!) Gingerbread Shortbread Granola Wednesday Preorder Malted Farro Mountain Rye Gingerbread + Shortbread Holiday specials are up on the website, and the Winter Bread Subscription will be up soon as well. I'll have signup sheets for both at the market starting next week.
See you soon! Sophie Owner | Baker I rode home from the kitchen last night chasing the edge of light. In front of me was a stripe of fading orange sky and the clouds were top lit, though their bellies were heavy with night. Behind me the clouds marched off in orderly rows into the dark. I felt like I might catch the sun, if only I rode a little faster. I was so busy looking up I nearly ran into the curb. Clouds can be dangerous that way. Today the sky is bright and empty, so perhaps I'll manage to keep my eyes on the road. Saturday Market Red & White, Mountain Rye, Vollkornbrot Country Rye with brotgewürz, apples, and whey Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Raspberry Lebni Tart Cardamom Roll Garden Pesto Twist Brown Butter Shortbread Granola Wednesday Market Red & White Mountain Rye Various Sweets See you soon!
Sophie Owner | Baker If I were a painter, I would paint the sky. I would paint the white edge of dawn, and then the wisp of cirrus across a pale summer morning. I would paint the racing altocumulus, the delicate scud of cirrocumulus, the cumulonimubus sailing like naval fleets across the prairie. In the winter, I would paint a thousand gentle grays. Gray-yellow. Gray-purple. Gray-green. Even the heavy nimbostratus would hold wonder. I would go to the desert and for a year paint nothing but the deep blue bowl above me. Blue, that series would be called, and it would redefine my understanding of the color. And I would paint the night sky, of course. I would paint the edge of a summer night fading pale green to dusty orange, and Venus flirting with the crescent moon against the darkening ómbre. I would lay back in a mountain meadow, high in the clear blue air, and paint the wheeling stars, one by one, as they spun above me. As I spun below them. As we spun together. Oh, but I miss the sky. Perhaps because I am so much a creature of the earth—steady and solid—it is not the dirt I ache for these long days baking in the fluorescent box of the kitchen, but the sky. Being cut off from the light and air and weather is like being lost from the world. Someday, when (if) I have my own bakery, I will have big windows. Saturday Market Red & White, Mountain Rye, Vollkornbrot, Country Rye Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Black Sesame & Fennel Palmier Strawberry Rhubarb Roll Garden Pesto Twist Croissant Granola Wednesday Market Country Rye & Mountain Rye Pastries See you soon!
Sophie Owner | Baker |