Author: Brooke Lucy

By Ashley Lodato, Bluebird Grain Farms staff writer

When he was in high school, Edouardo Jordan decided he would one day write his own cookbook. Now, nearly 20 years later, Jordan still hasn’t written that book but it’s not for lack of material; it’s for lack of time. A seemingly whirling dervish of culinary arts and fine dining, Jordan has hardly come up for air since graduating from culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Orlando in 2005. 

No stranger to cooking, Jordan entered culinary school with a substantial background in cooking for the people he loved. As a child, Jordan’s mother, Velda, and his grandmother, Maggie, “forced him into the kitchen,” telling him that cooking would make him a better man and a more artistic person. During what Jordan calls his “involuntary presence in the kitchen,” Jordan learned the lessons and recipes that would form the foundation for his later success as a chef and restauranteur. Mother, apparently, did know best. 

Later, while a student of Business Administration and Sports Management at the University of Florida, Jordan nurtured his minor in nutrition by feeding his friends and fraternity brothers in Alpha Phi Alpha. When he returned to his hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, following graduation in 2003, Jordan became an entrepreneur by successfully starting his own online restaurant guide.

After culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu, Edouardo both worked and apprenticed (as is customary for culinary school graduates) in Michelin-starred restaurants such as The French Laundry and Per Se, in Florida, California, Washington, and New York. Around this time Jordan became interested in meat curing and spent time studying under a sixth-generation salumist in Parma, Italy. Pursuing this interest turns out to have been a formative experience for Jordan, and ultimately later influenced the name of the restaurant he opened in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 2015–Salare.

Salare. Say it in Italian–“sah-LAH-ray”–and roll that “r.” The word is almost liquid. It means “to salt” or “to preserve” in Italian, and it so cleverly captures the most critical aspects of Jordan’s philosophy. First, it’s a testament to Jordan’s interest in primal techniques and ancient methods for preserving foods and to his restaurant’s signature charcuterie. Second, the Latinate word is a nod to Jordan’s investment in a diverse food culture, as the restaurant features dishes from the American South, to Africa, to Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. And third, the word embraces the very experience that Jordan wants diners at Salare to have: one that is memorable–“preserved,” in a sense.

Salare is both studiously unpretentious and subtly elegant. “A modern mom-and-pop restaurant,” Jordan calls it. The menu is inventive, but somehow familiar. Items like meatballs and cornbread ground the menu, but diners can find surprises in Pacific octopus, honeycomb tripe, and einkorn.

Einkorn? Did someone say einkorn? Jordan is among a growing number of chefs featuring Bluebird Grain Farms’ Einka einkorn on menus. Jordan is no stranger to Bluebird Grain Farms, having served both emmer farro and Bluebird’s hot cereals at Salare. He even features einkorn ice cream on his dessert menu.

Bluebird Grain Farms‘ products, along with the other Northwest-sourced items on Salare’s menu, are a fine fit for Jordan’s philosophy, as well as for Salare’s clientele. “People in the Northwest want to know where their food comes from and how it’s produced,” says Jordan. “It’s about seasonality, sustainability, locality, and preserving the ingredients’ integrity.” Jordan notes that the area he grew up in was surrounded by franchise businesses. “A lot of them had no soul.” People in Seattle like good food, says Jordan, “and that’s the most important thing I am trying to provide. Beyond flavor and taste, people are interested in trying something different, something just a little unfamiliar to them.”

Salare’s staff seems to be almost deliberately international, but that’s just a happy coincidence, says Jordan. “I love everyone and think everyone can bring something different to the party. I have an open door with resumes and I base my hiring on skill, desire to do the job, ability to do the job, and passion for the industry.” This focus on desire, ability, and passion has served Jordan well, not only from a hiring perspective but even more importantly as elements that have driven the trajectory of his own career.

Growing up as a child in an underserved neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Florida, Jordan says that he didn’t always make great decisions. “My friends were doing stupid things, skipping school, stealing. Some even died,” he says. But a middle school teacher told Jordan “You have potential, but you’ve got to make better life decisions.”

So Jordan did. He started playing sports, took AP classes. In college, he says, “I surrounded myself with people different from me, people who made me feel uncomfortable, in a good way. People who made me push.” He passes this strategy on to kids when he participates as a guest speaker with the DreamFaith Foundation, which is aimed at empowering the country’s underprivileged youth by equipping them with the necessary tools to overcome life’s challenges. “You have to have a dream,” he tells them, “you have to have a goal.”

Jordan has been focused on his culinary goals for nearly three decades now, but that doesn’t mean that he spends all of his time in the kitchen. “The restaurant is a moving force,” says Jordan. “One day I’m the chef, the next day I’m a life coach, the next day I’m a plumber.” Add that to electrician, painter, carpenter, window-washer–not to mention father and husband–and you begin to see that Salare is more than just a job or a project for Jordan, it’s a way of life. Still, Jordan seems to be weathering the challenges of restaurant ownership, perhaps by his channeling of Forest Gump’s philosophy. “Life is like a box of chocolates,” Jordan says, quoting Gump. “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Salare’s customers, however, know exactly what they’re going to get when they make a reservation: an eclectic menu laced with superb dishes, an elegantly comfortable dining area, and thoughtful, attentive service. Jordan’s stamp is on every aspect of the dining experience–his commitment to the quality of all things Salare. And what Jordan pours into his customers, his customers pour right back. “Seattle and the Ravenna neighborhood have shown a lot of love,” he says.

You can learn more about Salare by visiting their website or Facebook page.

by Ashley Lodato, Bluebird Grain Farms staff writer

Like many a good foodie, Avery Ruzicka fell in love with food in France. “I come from a family that enjoyed cooking and respected food,” the North Carolina native explains,” but when I lived abroad I learned how much amazing food there is in the world. In France I got to eat at a few multi-Michelin-Star restaurants and it opened my eyes. The refinement, the focus–the meal was sustenance, but it was also such a full experience.”

When Ruzicka returned to the States, it was with the intention of being a food writer, so she got a job in a restaurant at the “back of the house” (in restaurant lingo, this refers to the kitchen and all the areas of the restaurant that customers do not typically see), figuring that if she was to be a food writer, she needed to understand how the kitchen worked. It was in the back of the house that Ruzicka realized that she loved working in the kitchen. “It was clear that I wanted to pursue a cooking career,” says Ruzicka. So after finishing her undergraduate degree (in politics, international studies, and creative writing) in North Carolina, Ruzicka headed north, attending New York’s renowned French Culinary Institute, including its bread baking program. The program led to work in the kitchen in one of New York’s most celebrated restaurants, Per Se, where Ruzicka learned from master baker Ben Hershberger.

When Ruzicka crossed paths with Chef David Kinch of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Manresa Restaurant (which was recently awarded its third Michelin star), she felt compelled to work in his restaurant. But there was a hitch–the only job available at that time was in the “front of the house” (the entry, dining room, bar, and all other parts of the restaurant that customers occupy). So Ruzicka took the job and for six months worked happily as a food runner. Still, she yearned to be in the kitchen. Soon, Ruzicka found herself spending her time off–which was mornings–back in the kitchen with the bakers, learning their methods. After a while, Ruzicka says, “I thought that I could help make a better product. I reevaluated how the breads were created and made changes to result in better quality breads.” Six months after she started food running, a job opened up in the kitchen and I had to decide whether or not to take it. “When I thought about someone else making the bread,” Ruzicka says, “I got a pit in my stomach.” The decision was simple; Ruzicka moved to the back of the house.

Fast forward a few years; now, under Ruzicka’s leadership, the breads formerly found only on Manresa Restaurant tables can now be acquired at four additional locations: either of two Manresa Bread bakery locations in Los Gatos and Los Altos, as well as at the Campbell and Palo Alto farmers’ markets every Sunday. The markets are open until 1pm and the bakeries until 3pm, but Manresa’s breads and pastries typically sell out long before the markets close; their products are just that popular. And the more Ruzicka and her team bake, the more the customers clamor for. Whether it’s the weekly staples like Manresa’s levain, sourdough baguette, and monkey bread or the seasonal items such as the pumpernickel buckwheat rye and the tartines, demand is consistent.

Does Ruzicka have a secret? Not really, she says, other than her own curiosity. “We’re not doing anything groundbreaking here,” Ruzicka says, “but I am just constantly trying out new things to improve our products.” Like other innovative bakers, Ruzicka is consumed with the quality of her ingredients. “Big batch commodity flour just does not taste as good,” says Ruzicka. “That was one of the first things I changed at Manresa–where we were buying our flours. We stopped buying bigger brand flour and started buying smaller production flour.” That purchasing decision eventually led Ruzicka to begin milling some of her own grains, most notably rye. “Commercial rye just doesn’t move off the shelf as quickly as wheat,” says Ruzicka, so rye often sits on supplier shelves getting old and dry, resulting in a lackluster bread. Now, Ruzicka can mill just the flour she needs on a regular basis in small batches.

Ruzicka is a huge fan of Bluebird Grain Farms’ Einka™ einkorn flour, which she learned about when a Methow Valley customer visited Manresa Restaurant and brought in some sample bags of flour. “I’m always interested in trying different milled products,” Ruzicka says, “and when I tested the einkorn it was really clear that the flavor would come through, even if I was only using 30% einkorn with 70% of another flour. That nuttiness, the subtle sweetness–that’s not true of all grains.” Ruzicka is partial to Bluebird’s Emmer Flour as well, and enjoys mixing both flours with others in order to achieve depth and texture in her loaves.

Bread has been given a bad rap lately, what with all the low-carb diet propaganda circulating. What does Ruzicka have to say in defense of bread? Like a growing number of grains revolutionaries, Ruzicka believes that the problem lies with the quality of the breads that are most readily available. “It’s a good bread versus bad bread question,” says Ruzicka. “Processed white flour grocery store bread is just not that good for you. There’s no fiber in it. All the vitamins have been processed out of it.” Ruzicka, on the other hand, uses freshly milled flours from small batch producers. Her bread has a long, slow fermentation process (36 hours minimum), which breaks down the gluten, and much of it is leavened with sourdough starter, not commercial yeasts. “All those things aid in the digestion process,” Ruzicka says. She adds, “All of my team is around these baked products and testing them all day long. We all feel great and I don’t think anyone has gained an ounce.”

Of course, that might be simply because they are working so hard. A self-professed night owl, Ruzicka copes well with both the early hours required of bakers and the long days necessary for farmers market sales. Still, the schedule seems punishing. “This is my life!” Ruzicka laughs. “I wouldn’t recommend this job to anyone in the culinary world who isn’t incredibly passionate about it. It’s so much fun, but so much hard work.”

Ruzicka doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, however. “I want to be a part of the food world AND fine dining AND bake bread,” she says. “My time at Manresa Restaurant taught me to pay attention to the small details,” Ruzicka notes, “and that helps set the tone for the bakery.” Although the bakery creates artisan-style bread and pastries and wouldn’t “throw away a baguette that was 1/2″ longer than intended” (implying that this actually happens in some bakeries!), Ruzicka and her team want to understand WHY that particular baguette didn’t conform. “We want to know why one grain or process is better suited for a particular need,” says Ruzicka, “we don’t want to force something to be what it isn’t.” Which sounds a bit like Ruzicka’s own process, figuring out through exploration and discovery what suits her best.

If you find yourself in the south San Francisco Bay Area, stop by one of the Manresa Bread locations.

Are you looking for a place to buy a loaf of Einka bread? Or Emmer shortbread cookies? If so, you need to check out Cereal Box Bakery, a new micro-bakery in Seattle.  Started by Rob Salvino, Cereal Box features many of our flours in its bread and baked goods. Rob has a long history with Bluebird Grain Farms: for years, he helped us sell our products to grocery stores, restaurants, and bakeries. Now, he’s decided to bake with them himself.

Rob sources flour made from locally grown varietal grains like ours and reinterprets favorite recipes to highlight their unique qualities. He specializes in fresh-baked breads and pastries, crisp crackers, breakfast cereals and granola, and many more tasty delights. Cereal Box Bakery doesn’t have a retail space and you won’t find their products in grocery stores. Instead, the bakery operates like a CSA. Subscribers receive a box of fresh-baked goods on their doorstep every week in the morning before work or school. They deliver to most Seattle neighborhoods north of downtown. Right now they are offering a great trial offer—three weeks of deliveries for the price of two. You can also find Cereal Box Bakery at the Magnolia Farmers Market on Saturdays from 10am-2pm.

Visit www.cerealboxbakery.com to sign up. Visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/cerealboxbakery to see pictures of their baked goods and read customer comments.

by Ashley Lodato

“Mine is a family of food lovers,” says Carlton, Washington baker Sarah Brown. “We love to cook and enjoy meals together.” When Sarah visited her grandparents, she remembers several different types of sourdough breads, stinky cheeses, and homemade jams sitting on their counters. As her grandfather put her on the bus for the two-hour ride home, he pressed into her hand a warm sourdough roll stuffed with butter or peanut butter to tide her over.

Sarah followed in her bread-baking family’s footsteps in middle school, when she discovered how simple it was (“add yeast to some sweet dough, roll it up with cinnamon, and—voila!—sticky buns”). The skill served her well when she became a strict vegetarian and her parents handed her the responsibility of cooking for herself.

Sarah confesses that in retrospect, her first loaves of bread were probably not very good. “I started with tasteless flour and lots of yeast,” she says,  “and I ate hundreds, maybe thousands of loaves of over risen over-yeasted bread while I refined my ability and learned about the ingredients and process.” Sarah’s grandmother (bless her!) was willing to sample any of Sarah’s loaves, however, and that gave Sarah the confidence to keep experimenting with ingredients and proportions. And eventually that goal that had seemed so elusive—“a crusty tangy loaf that aged well and begged to be eaten,” says Sarah—became something that she could replicate time and again in her own oven.

Now, says Sarah, “Food is the stable element in my family’s life. We break bread together every day.” As a wife and mother of two young children, Sarah is the most prolific baker in the family, but she shares her love of baking with her kids. “I love it when my kids are making pancakes on a Saturday morning they ask me which kind of flour they should use and why,” she says.

You can probably guess which kinds of flours are stocked in the Brown family pantry. Sarah feeds her sourdough starter with Methow Hard Red and Pasayten Hard White flours. “I enjoy the flavor of my sourdough fed with Bluebird flours,” she says, “It smells like sweet apple cider.” Sarah has been using Bluebird’s wheat flours long enough that she can tell the difference between the different years and the batches of grain as the season progresses. “I really like the nutty quality of the wheat flours,” she says. “I also think the grind on the hard white is ideal for all kinds of baking; it makes it really versatile and adds flavor without adding the weightiness of a whole wheat bread flour.”

For variety, Sarah finds herself reaching for Bluebird’s hard red flour because “it adds such a great punch of flavor to whatever I’m cooking.” She quite frequently uses a blend of hard red and hard white “to get the best of both worlds.” And she loves Bluebird’s Dark Northern Rye flour for cookies —“especially ones with cocoa, yum!” (Such as Dori Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies.)

It’s not just Bluebird’s flours, though, that Sarah is fond of. “We love everything that I make with Bluebird products,” she says. The family eats Bluebird’s Old World Cereal Blend, takes Bluebird’s pancake mix on canoe trips, and Sarah frequently cooks up whole grain emmer farro with chicken stock or herbs for various dishes. And if she has extra emmer that hasn’t been strongly flavored, Sarah says, “I’ll toss the leftovers in my next batch of bread.” She adds, in case it isn’t obvious, “Wheat and cereal grains are a central part of our diet.”

It’s also important to Sarah that “my kids can see Sam and Brooke and know that they are growing a staple food for our family.” Sarah knows food production from many angles, commenting that “When I was farming for a living there was a short time when everyone in my family was working in the food industry.” Sustainable farming and producing food with integrity are important to her. “The quality of the ingredients really does make a critical difference in how the food tastes,” she says.

Certainly the satisfaction of providing her family with delicious, nutritious meals is gratifying, but Sarah also finds the act of making bread to be therapeutic. “When we have had dark times in our family I did turn to baking and cooking as a balm for my heartache. I knew I was seeking out my kitchen, my center of warmth, for healing and to help my family gain perspective and the baked goods did help lift us up and push us through the hardest days,” she says.

Baking is also grounding for Sarah. Coming from generations of bakers, Sarah says that “Baking bread keeps me grounded to this place, it brings me back again and again.” Other bread is okay, says Sarah, who has favorite bakeries everywhere she visits, “but I love coming home and feeding my sourdough and watching the bread darken my oven.”

Another thing you might find in Sarah’s oven is a pie, a pizza, or a croissant, especially around the holidays. About a decade ago, Sarah embarked on a quest to bake the perfect pie crust, so she made a pie a day for a month. “I have never forgotten how to make a good pie crust,” she says, adding ruefully “and I will always remember how much spring hiking I did to manage the ‘other’ results of my newly perfected pie making skills.”

Sarah encourages new bakers to just throw themselves into it and get their hands in the dough. “Try something new!” she urges. “Try your favorite cookie recipe with a ¼ cup whole grain flour and see if you notice a difference. For most of us the worst-case scenario is a batch of mediocre bread or pastries- which at least in my house will still get eaten with great pleasure! The best case scenario is a discovery of a new flavor or combination that you love.”

In this age of cooking shows and internet recipe videos, Sarah reminds us that “My great great grandmother didn’t have food blogs or TV cooking shows. She just had to figure out how to make her food taste as great as she could in the time she had.” That’s Sarah—making her food as delicious as possible in the time she has with the best ingredients she can get.

by Ashley Lodato

When Heather Ostenson won the Douglas County Wheat Wives’ Junior Baking Queen award at the county fair as a 10-year-old, little did she suspect that one day she would be the owner and chief baker at her own bakery.

It’s not surprising, however, that despite a first career in industrial design and civil engineering, Heather eventually ended up pursuing baking as a livelihood. An early childhood spent on a farm in Arroyo Grande, CA, gave Heather daily lessons in food sources. The family raised poultry, pigs, and sheep for their own consumption, and grew a garden. Heather watched her mother (“and probably wasn’t much help,” she says) growing sprouts on the counter, preserving home-grown food, and grinding wheat for bread. “These are my first memories of knowing where our food comes from,” she says.

Heather’s family moved to the Wenatchee area when she was six, and this is about when Heather finally found her stride in the kitchen and joined the local 4-H, which was led by her mother. Although she had long helped bake Christmas cookies, through 4-H Heather learned to prepare meals, put up food, sew, and bake; her baking skills led to her eventual coronation as Junior Baking Queen in 1984.

Fast forward to Wenatchee, WA, 1997. Heather and her husband Jeff had recently moved back to Wenatchee, and craved some of the ethnic foods they had developed a taste for during college and living in bigger urban centers. They began “taking turns hosting ethnic dinners” with friends–many of whom were high school friends who had also recently moved back to the Wenatchee area–preparing “things we couldn’t get in Wenatchee at the time,” says Heather. During that period Heather, who was working as a civil engineering technician, began to rekindle her interest in cooking. “I would spend weekend mornings watching Great Chefs on PBS, and I had a subscription to Martha Stewart!” she says.

As Jeff was managing his family’s organic tree-fruit packing shed out in the Basin, the Ostensons were closely tied to what was happening in the organic fruit markets and programs. “We were also being exposed to food and wine culture,” says Heather. “I guess you could say we became foodies.” Heather began cooking in earnest on the weekends, “partly out of the joy I derived from [the process of cooking] as well as from sharing good food with others.”

Whole grain cake? Yes please!

Although she didn’t bake consistently during those years, Heather did pick up a copy of Jim Lahey’s book My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method, and that re-ignited her passion for baking, both traditionally as well as with gluten-free flours. Two years ago she started baking cakes for friends and family birthdays, and she hasn’t stopped since.

In the fall of 2014 Heather attended the San Francisco Baking Institute. In December of that year she using borrowed space in Lulu’s commercial kitchen in East Wenatchee to bake cakes and breads. Demand, however, quickly outpaced Heather’s borrowed space and she began searching for a place of her own, which she found in unlikely locale–at the LINK Transit‘s Columbia Station. And thus Balsamroot Baking expanded into Balsamroot Bakery & Cafe.

Columbia Station is not your average bus station. Bright and modern, the station is the hub for dozens of routes that connect the Wenatchee area with 17 communities in Chelan and Douglas counties. And Balsamroot Bakery & Cafe is not your average bus station coffee house. Situated on a corner, the cafe has windows on three sides of the building, with eastern exposure frontage on Columbia Street that allows for outdoor seating. Serving breakfast, lunch, and Saturday brunch, the cafe links the menu to the seasons, with pastries, desserts, and Blue Star Coffee available all day long. For Heather, the underserved neighborhood of Columbia Station also appealed; she likes bringing business into that area of Wenatchee.

Balsamroot’s menu speaks to a wide audience. For some customers, gluten-free is essential, and even some of the most decadent baked goods are available as gluten-free. For others, organic and locally-sourced ingredients are important, which is just one of many reasons why Heather uses Bluebird Grain Farms exclusively for her flours (except for gluten-free).

What Heather is doing at Balsamroot Bakery is pretty unique. Although there are other commercial bakers using whole grain flours exclusively for their breads, Heather hasn’t run across anyone else making only whole grain pastries. Gluten-free and whole-grain products at Balsamroot provide more than just sustenance for customers, says Heather, they serve as “a platform for conversations about food integrity and nutrition. People might come in thinking they need or want gluten-free. While we don’t try to talk them out of that, for people who don’t have a medically-necessary reason for eating that way, they often ultimately choose the whole grain items we have.” Ultimately, Heather is interested in cultivating greater awareness about food integrity through the food the cafe and bakery offers.

Many customers get their first taste of whole grain pastries at Balsamroot.

 

For many customers, Balsamroot is their first experience with whole grain baked goods, especially whole grain pastry and desserts, and their enlightenment begins the moment they taste their first scone or piece of toast. Since Balsamroot does only whole grain baking, “we don’t really have any ‘transitional’ or ‘gateway’ products,” says Heather. “While we love the flavor, texture, and nutrition of whole grain baked goods, for someone whose exposure is predominantly highly processed white breads – what we do is going to be very different from their past experience. We try to let every customer know that they’re eating whole grains.”

Heather’s commitment offering local, organic, and nutritious foods has led her to source ingredients from a variety of small Central Washington producers in addition to Bluebird Grain Farms: goat cheese from Sunny Pine Farm in Twisp, meats from Crown S Ranch in Winthrop, meats and cheeses from local businesses in Pybus Market, coffee from Blue Star Coffee Roasters in Twisp, tea is from Cha Fine Teas in Pybus Market, produce from Rhubarb Market in Wenatchee, as well as chocolate from Theo Chocolate in Seattle. “We work hard to provide delicious, healthful whole foods that showcase what our region has to offer,” she says. She continues, “What we’re doing with the bakery cafe is a little ‘fringe’ or risky. It’s sad, frustrating, and surprising that in such an agriculturally rich region, eating locally and caring about how your food is grown and raised would be something of a ‘fringe’ idea. We take risks everyday in what we put on the menus and in the case.”

These risks include constant experimentation with new offerings. “Because we are baking exclusively with whole grain flours, we have to adjust nearly every formula we use,” says Heather. “Sometimes it takes a few test batches to get it right–and this takes time, so squeezing everything in to a day can be a challenge, or makes for long days. Consistency is a challenge for certain items; for example, how do we achieve a consistent form in our scones when we are changing the add-ins daily or weekly?”

With other items, Heather says, “we are constantly trying to evolve–like our pain a l’ancienne baguettes,” in which she uses Bluebird’s Pasayten Hard White Flour. Much of baking is chemistry, Heather reminds us, and she loves “the dichotomy of baking: intuition and science.” When she ferments bread overnight, for example, she is “shepherding” the product for a day or more. If something doesn’t turn out as she anticipated, Heather says, “I’ll retrace my steps and give it another go (or two or four) until I get it figured out. I tinker constantly with formulas and procedures, after the best product I can produce with the tools I’ve got.” The end products are a result of numerous trials, copious notes, and serendipitous hunches.

Balsamroot’s baguettes are made with Pasayten Hard White , cold fermented overnight, and formed wet.

 

While all this experimentation doesn’t lead to efficient mass production, it does lead to products that Heather can stand behind, both nutritionally and philosophically. “We have become a society that expects instant gratification,” she says, “but we don’t think about the full magnitude of satisfying our appetites for goods.” Heather hopes that Balsamroot will aid people’s understanding of the food economy, our environment, and our health.

With winter right around the corner and Heather’s interest in seasonal cooking, German and Scandinavian breads are next up in the mixing bowl. And while the recipe will differ from those breads she has been baking all summer and fall, the message that these breads, like everything that comes out of the Balsamroot kitchen, communicate will be the same: ingredients matter.

by Ashley Lodato

On a crisp Labor Day evening that foretold autumn, 300 guests gathered at TwispWorks to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Bluebird Grain Farms. With catering provided by Cameron Green and guest chef John Sundstrom of Seattle’s lark restaurant, the paella dinner was as stunning a visual anchor for the event as it was a tasty, almost entirely locally produced meal.

Fires were laid in the four Hotspot Fire Pits earlier in the afternoon in order to provide the hardwood coals needed to cook the three paella dishes made with Bluebird’s organic whole grain emmer farro as a base: one vegetarian using local squash, onions, and peppers, one meat using locally raised chorizo, and one seafood, with clams and other shellfish (not local, of course!).

As young servers passed appetizers, guests mingled on the TwispWorks campus near the North Warehouse, sampling Methow wine, beer, and hard cider while listening to the lively tunes of local fiddlers and banjo players.

When the food was ready, Brooke and Sam thanked the gathered guests for supporting Bluebird’s vision over the years. Then, seated at three long rows of tables, guests ate paeala, salads, and bread, shared stories of their own joys, hardships, and adventures from the summer, and toasted the success of a thriving, small-scale family-owned organic farm.

As Brooke wandered through the crowd greeting friends old and new, she met two women who had traveled from Alaska for the dinner! The pair receive Bluebird products in their CSA at home, are crazy about Bluebird’s organic emmer pancake and waffle mix, and decided to use the dinner as the focal point of a vacation in Washington State.

The celebration also served to showcase TwispWorks’ Methow Made project, which connects a wider consumer audience with Methow farmers, producers, and artisans.

The best part of the evening for Brooke and Sam was the opportunity to gather Bluebird’s staunchest supporters in one place; to share a meal with those who have purchased products, created recipes, leased farmland, spread the word about little-known heirloom grains, and in other ways helped sustain Bluebird Grain Farms. We at Bluebird Grain Farms are delighted to mark our 10th anniversary and we look forward to many more such milestones in our future.