Category: Blog

I love cornbread year-round but there’s something about the last ears of sweet corn and the first mornings I need to wear a sweatshirt that make me make it more often.

Of course, the idea of corn really appeals to me, because it is the only grain native to the Americas. Wheat and rye are travelers here, like white people. Using stone ground cornmeal, especially from seed varieties that Indigenous people have tended, like the Iroquois White Corn Project, is a small bridge I can cross to begin to address the many problems in America, and American farming and eating.

I especially love using cornmeal with rye because rye grew better in New England than wheat did, and cornmeal rye was a very common bread until grain farming was centralized in a few areas in America. Cornmeal rye breads, like Boston brown bread and Anadama bread seem the most American of breads to me. I’ll be making more of them too, as the weather cools.

Here is the recipe for cornbread I’m using this fall. Depending on the grind of cornmeal you have, adjust how much milk you use. I’m using Farmer Ground Flour, and that’s a pretty coarse grind so it’s really thirsty. If you have a medium or fine ground, you’ll need 1/4 cup less milk.

• 2 cups (252 g) stone ground cornmeal
• 1 cup (108 g) whole grain rye flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (100 g) yogurt
• 1 1/2 cup (340 g) milk
• 1/2 cup (113 g) butter, melted

Whisk together the dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls, and stir to combine. Let rest on the counter 15 minutes. This step is important for allowing the flours to absorb the liquids.

There are two ways to bake this: in a 10 inch cast iron skillet, or a well buttered 10 inch pie dish. If you use the skillet, melt the butter in it on the top of the stove, and warm the pan as you preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. In either pan, bake for 25 minutes.

I used to think hand pies were selfish little things, like cupcakes: miniatures of treats that ought to be shared. But working with my friend Ellie Markovitch changed my mind. We made sweet potato hand pies one Thanksgiving at the soup kitchen where I worked, and it was lovely to be able to give people something they could take home.

I fell in love with for the little bits of love these deliver. Pie crust reminds me of skin, and when we cannot hug or even shake hands, or see friends’ smiles under their masks, I can sculpt a little flour love and hand it over. I have made them alongside regular pies, using the same filling, like in the picture above. I also fill them with jam, or just cooked down fruit. I’ve learned from teachers at The Kneading Conference, specifically Sharon Burns-Leader, that adding a little dried fruit helps hold the filling together. But there is no need to make an extra trip to the store! I just use what I have in my kitchen.

Recipe

• 2 cups whole grain flour — spelt is my favorite
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) cubed butter
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup ice water
• Jam or cooked fruit of your choice

Cut the butter into the flour and salt using a pastry cutter, or a food processor. Lightly whisk together the egg and ice water, and add to the flour mixture. Divide dough into 2 rounds and refrigerate for an hour, or overnight.

On a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a 10 x 10 inch square. Cut into 4 rectangles, as pictured, or use a biscuit cutter to make rounds. Put 1 – 1½ tablespoons jam in center. Be careful not to add too much! Like life, hand pies get full really quickly.

Fold one side of rectangle over, or double up circles of dough. Pinch edges with a wet fork, and poke some vents in the surface.

Place on a greased cookie sheet and brush with milk to get a shiny crust. Bake in a preheated 375° Fahrenheit oven for about 15-20 minutes, depending on size.

Note: If you use uncooked pie filling, it will take a bit longer to cook.

Impossibly, we’re near the end of the year. I’m not sure I swam once this summer, and yet the trees are poking their bones at the sky, at me, making some kind of accusation about time. See? Nature seems to say. Time is going to happen, and it did.

As if I needed more evidence, I just taught holiday baking class at Honest Weight Food Co-op. When I wrote the class description, I thought it would be fun to explore savory shortbread, and it was. Seeking advice on Instagram, lots of people recommended cheese as the springboard. I resisted that because I wanted to keep my explorations in the flour flavors — of course — and thought that cheese would overwhelm the wild tastes I want to highlight.

The first batch I made was really not tasty. I skipped all the sugar and ended up with super pale crumbs. Back to the drawing board! After reading a million online recipes – including my own, which I’d forgotten I wrote for Edible Brooklyn, as a holiday baking guide – and flipping through the SISTER PIE cookbook, Dorie Greenspan’s BAKING: FROM MY HOME TO YOURS, the new TARTINE, and the new JOY OF COOKING, I came up with some guidelines for playing the game of savory shortbread.

TEMPLATE RECIPE
1 stick/4 ounces/113 g soft butter, cubed
3 tablespoons/45 g sugar
1 ¼ cups/ 130-145 g whole grain flour (whole grain flours weigh differently, which is why there is a range in grams, but not cups)
½ teaspoon salt
About ½ to 1 teaspoon of dried herbs or spices

Cream together butter and sugar. Whisk flour, salt and spices together in a separate bowl. Combine the flour mixture with the creamed butter & sugar. You may need to add a little more flour, or a little liquid. You are going for a stiff dough, but if the mixture is too crumby, add a teaspoon of water or maybe some alcohol to pull it all together.

Roll the dough flat between sheets of waxed paper, ¼ inch thick. Alternately, use the waxed paper wrapper from the butter to roll some dough into a round or square log that you will slice into shortbreads.

Now is the time to sprinkle some nigella seeds, or pepper flakes, or herbs de Provence and salt, pressing the additions lightly into the square with your rolling pin. If you’ve made rolls, you can press these tasty things onto the sides. Refrigerate the dough on a cookie sheet for a couple of hours or a couple of days. OR, if you are short on time, flash in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut into 1 x 1 inch or 2 x 2 inch squares; or cut rolls into slices ¼ inch thick. Place cookies of the same size on an ungreased sheet. Poke tops with fork tines. Bake 9 minutes for small cookies, about 12-15 minutes for larger. Let set slightly on cookie sheet, then cool on racks.

I made rye shortbreads, and whole wheat pastry shortbreads. They went down pretty well. But the BIG hit is the following one, based on Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies. I chose the cornmeal-rye combo because this is the most American grain pairing, and indicative of what a lot of people ate before the wheat belts were developed. (I wrote about this in my booklet, THE PANCAKE PAPERS, essays and recipes that didn’t fit in my book.)

Spicy Cornmeal Rye Shortbread

2 sticks/8 ounces butter
1/3 cup/80 grams sugar
1 cup/4 ounces/115 g stoneground cornmeal
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons/4 ounces/ 115 g whole grain rye flour
1 cup/4 ounces/115 g whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chipolte powder
1 tsp smoked paprika

Cream the butter and sugar. Mix the flours, salt and spices together in a separate bowl. Combine both together to make the dough. If it’s not stiff, add a little more pastry flour. If it is very crumbly, add a teaspoon of water, or alcohol.

Roll the dough flat between sheets of waxed paper, ¼ inch thick. Alternately, use the waxed paper wrapper from the butter to roll some dough into a round or square log that you will slice into shortbreads.

If you’d like, sprinkle some nigella seeds or pepper flakes lightly into the square. If you’ve made rolls, you can press these tasty things — or others — onto the sides. Refrigerate the dough on a cookie sheet for a couple of hours or a couple of days. OR, if you are short on time, flash in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut into 1 x 1 inch or 2 x 2 inch squares; or cut rolls into slices ¼ inch thick. Place cookies of the same size on an ungreased sheet. Poke tops with fork tines. Bake 9 minutes for small cookies, about 12-15 minutes for larger. Let set slightly on cookie sheet, then cool on racks.

I packed up some shortbreads for Jack to bring on the train — he left for Seattle, to be with his folks and sister for Thanksgiving. I’m glad he’ll have them for nibbling as he reads.

Hope you’ll try your hand at these for your holiday meals and gift making.

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Dawn Woodward of Evelyn’s Crackers in Toronto is a real leader. Her bakery focuses on heritage grains, milled whole. She is an advocate for choosing non-wheat grains to celebrate tastes, and to build opportunities for farmers. Her flavor compass steers conversations and devotions, as anyone who follows her on Instagram painfully knows.

Cyril Hitz called my book a love letter to flour, so I thought I should send a Valentine! Pancakes were my first devotion, the first food I made by myself, and the first food I made the lover I married. My mild obsession with pancakes went into overdrive when I learned about fresh flour, and that led to The New Bread Basket. I haven’t forgotten pancakes but sourdough has caught up in its lovely storm. As I dive into sourdough and bread, I’m thrilled to meet so many fellow devotees. I didn’t have partners in my passion for pancakes. Happy eaters, yes, but I was alone in my fascinations and didn’t have the chance to talk shop. There is no shortage of people enchanted by sourdough. The magic of natural leavening makes you feel connected to something bigger than your life.   This liveliness kills the dead metaphor of breaking bread, even though our bread systems are pretty broken. From individuals fearing the daily loaf to actual cells rejecting gluten molecules, to supermarkets creating more “artisan” loaves than the emergency feeding system can absorb – the fractures are many. Food pantries can’t access enough sliced bread because factories have trimmed their waste, and farmers struggle to make their businesses economically viable in a yield-based global commodity market.   Yet as many problems are there are with bread, bread makes change from the ground up. I’m exploring these changes more deeply, working on a project to tell the story of Wide Awake Bakery, part of the farmer–baker–miller trio in the first chapter of my book. This year I’m also focused on women in grains. Please look for my profiles on Instagram and Facebook, and audio interviews on my website. In April at the Asheville Bread Festival and with Slow Food NYC, I’ll be leading discussions about women innovating regional grain economies. I probably won’t make any special bread for Thursday, because bread is an everyday love for me. But I am remembering the Valentines I made with my mom. She had a box with paper doilies and Valentines from all eras we could use to make collages.   Bread is like that box: a collection of recipes that are postcards from time. The potential of flours, methods and styles of bread – we can pick and choose from all of these elements to connect with traditions and make collages. All of them say I love you. Your flour pal, Amy AKA @Flourambassador

I’ve long been curious about regional grain projects in the middle of the country, so when MOSES, the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service conference included a full day workshop on small grains, I knew I had to go. So I flew to Wisconsin at the end of February.

GROWING & MARKETING FOOD-GRADE SMALL GRAINS was a MOSES Organic University course led by farmers. About fifty people were in the room, and about half the them were already doing something with food grade grains — the other half were curious about getting into this emerging market. Other panels and sessions looked at specialty grains, too.

This conference was a big event. Lots of vendors lined the halls of the convention center, and, looking down from the bleachers, I saw a little city of rural people, strolling past tables, or standing still, to talk about products and services: soil amendments, seeds, tillage equipment. A low-bellied din hovered over the activity like the buzz of a beehive.

I recognized some vendors & groups: Johnny’s Seeds, Practical Farmers of Iowa, and the Young Farmers Coalition. But mostly, things were unfamiliar. I am always surprised by how little I know about farming. This is why I feel compelled to write about agriculture. We are so divided from our food, and how it gets to us. I want to change that, and that means I have to keep facing my ignorance.

The blindspot I saw this time was the dominance of corn/soy inside organics. I didn’t realize that organics mirrored conventional farming, but in both farming styles, corn and soy for commodity markets are the top crops. Which just gives me another reason to push for mills and malthouses — so growers can step out of commodity price strictures, where they have no say in their earnings. Easy enough for me to say, but it takes a lot more than one flour fan to convince growers to shift gears.

But this flour fan had the ears of a crowd in Minneapolis at the Food Building. This is where Baker’s Field Flour and Bread lives, and where I led a talk, called Farmer, Miller, Baker, Maker: Why Modern Grain Matters. The panel included miller/baker Steve Horton, Jeff Casper of Dumplings and Strand, Ben Penner of Ben Penner Farms, and Luke Peterson of Peterson Farms.

I tried to show how these grain partnerships were unusual, and why they deserved support. Farmers Ben and Luke did a great job of describing their families’ decisions to do something different with grains. Theresa J. Beckhusen wrote a good story about the event in City Pages, and if you want to hear a recording, please head here.

A woman in the audience at the Food Building asked what people could ask their senators for as the Farm Bill comes up for review. I wasn’t quick enough to say SUPPORT CROP ROTATIONS, but I did say people should ask their bakers to use local flour, even for one type of cookie, or one loaf of bread.

I’m rabid to do more talks like this — to help introduce people to the pioneers who are helping us get new grains. Each new mill and malt house needs dedicated consumers. If you’d like me to do a talk near you, please let me know.

 

One of the last interviews I did for The New Bread Basket was with Greg Russo from Farmer Ground Flour. Listening to him, the book took the shape of a mission, one that hinged on a single sentence: Mills, like farmers markets, are the levers growers need to put something new in the ground.

This observation followed his experiences with local foods. Greg worked at Roxbury Farms, a large biodynamic farm and vegetable CSA in the Hudson Valley. Working in vegetables, he saw the local food movement needed staple crops. He didn’t plan on being a miller — who does? — but he was happy when the opportunity to start a mill arrived. After building that mill, and helping Farmer Ground Flour expand into a brand new building, Greg helped me see that local flour needs local mills.

If we want grain production outside of the grain belts, we need facilities dedicated to these crops. Mills grow farmers, and Farmer Ground Flour has grown a dozen. That could not have happened without Dan Gladstone, farm manager at Oechsner Farms.

Dan helps steer the 1200 diversified acres that Oechsner Farms tackles each year, and helped to build up the organic grain supply for the mill. This is wild work, stuff city folks can’t imagine. When I once asked Dan if he had plans for the summer, he laughed. Farmers work summers. Right.

Just how little eaters know about food production is amazing. I learned this again from a 1908 letter I read with John Linstrom, a Liberty Hyde Bailey scholar, who invited me to spend some time with him at Cornell with Bailey’s papers.

This letter was part of the Country Life Commission’s inquiry into farm life, and the writer recommended a national organization should be formed to show the work of farming to the consumer. (Liberty Hyde Bailey Papers, #21/2/3342, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.)

KNOW YOUR FARMER is a bumper sticker and campaign launched in 2009 by the USDA — 100 years after farmers told the government they needed this sort of help.

I will always be learning about the work of farming, and with my writing I hope to help close the gap between farm and fork, belly and brain. I want people to know what it takes to get food from the ground. I think we owe that to the farmers.

Since flour is my favorite food, I’ve put together a list of regional mills. I’ve also written an article about mills for the New Food Economy that further explains the importance of mills, and of the mill that made Aunt Jemima pancake mix.

Please take a look, and as you plan your summer travel, think about finding the grains that live where you visit. And of course, don’t forget that pancakes are a great way to taste this flour revolution.

 

I am home from my latest expedition, which began in Chicago, on a panel at The Good Food Festival.

 

“When I opened my bakery four years ago, I thought it would be easy to get local flour,” said Ellen Levine. The owner of Hewn had trained as a pastry chef in Seattle, and thought that moving home to the breadbasket would give her access to my favorite food. However, like Randy George of Red Hen Baking in Vermont, patience and inquisition have been the keys to helping develop regional supply.

Visiting her bakery and meeting her business partner Julie and some of their employees was a treat. I couldn’t have dreamt up a better origin story: this iteration of the bakery began when Ellen’s very small bicycle delivery CSB caught Julie’s attention. Once Julie had the bread, she began a journey to help get this bread to more people. Now, Hewn is waiting for Janie’s Farm to get their milling operation online so they can use more regional flour.

 

Next I went to the Mill City Museum, which is made from the ruins of Pillsbury’s Washburn A mill. As I was researching my book I read about Minnesota’s history with milling and wheat. This is where spring bread wheat really took root, and so did American roller milling. Maybe this was Ground Zero for the disappearance of wheat, flour and bread from daily life? I don’t think there’s really one Ground Zero for the sea changes we’ve seen in grains over the last 200 years, but significant changes began to happen in Minneapolis, and I was glad to visit the remnants of the mill.

The reason for this trip was a residency at the McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement at St. John’s University. I spent three days there and at the College of St. Benedict’s, talking my heart out about regional grains and how to change the food system.

 

Professor Matt Lindstrom, Director of the McCarthy Center invited me, and hosted the centerpiece event, a conversation with Chef Paul Berglund, the James Beard award-winning chef from The Bachelor Farmer. We talked about the challenges of using food that links more directly to the land than products from the dominant production system.

The talk was held at St. John’s Pottery, which operates in a tradition that glues the pottery to the place. Now I can drink tea from the mug that Richard Bresnahan gave me, and reflect on a subject that’s been itching me this year.

 

As people we create containers for each other. We open and shut doors to each other and experiences. This notion came to me because in January and February, my city lost a few residents. Dean Leith founder of Capital Roots, and Mary Jane Smith, who founded Unity House, and my neighbor Chico Christopher and my aunt Mary Ellen Halloran all passed away. My cousin John and Steve’s remembrances of their mother helped me see a lesson in these exits.

 

Do the work, was the theme that John took from his mother’s life, using the fact that she made bread for their sandwiches all through school as a suggestion that we should just do the work, not fuss about presidential dramas or other unsolvable woes. Steve noted that his mother, an elementary school teacher didn’t try to change people. She loved her students, and that changed them.

 

Do the work and love each other — these practical injunctions resonate for me as I consider the structures that the other people I mentioned created. My neighbor Chico was an architect and served on the board at Capital Roots, which grew from Dean Leith and Garden Way’s initial community garden into a multi-pronged food access and urban greening agency. Mary Jane Smith was an architect of the multi-pronged human services agency that houses the community meals and food pantry programs where I work.

 

At St. John’s and St. Ben’s, I realized that my grains storytelling began when Matt and Amy Lindstrom built another container, the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market with other people in my city. I applied for the job as market manager because I was tired of writing query letters for jobs that I never got. I had no clue that my writing would find a new imperative. Working for the farmers I saw I needed to make visible the work that we eaters take for granted.

 

And that awareness is something I explore in another container – an essay in the book Letters to a Young Farmer. Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture invited me to contribute this piece to that book, which is part of their general effort to create change and opportunities in farming.

 

My trip to the Midwest held many more people that I want to tell you about, but I’ve been talking long enough this morning, so I will tell you more another time.

 

 

I can’t believe how much of it has slipped under us already this year. It feels like I was just packing for the Cascadia Grains conference, yet since then, I’ve been enough places to break a suitcase.

 

Cascadia Grains Conference in Olympia, WA

NOFA-NY Winter Conference in Saratoga, NY

Farmer Brewer Winter Weekend at Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY

Hudson Valley Grains School in Coxsackie, NY

Brewers’ Choice in Brooklyn

Louismill in Louisville, KY

IACP Conference in Louisville, KY

 

I wanted to write about each one and tell you about the grains pioneers I met, but as soon as I get home I’m back to work at Unity House. I am grateful that my job is flexible enough to let me pursue so many opportunities. Everywhere I go, I try to get a taste of the innovations in emergency feeding programs like the ones I help run.

 

Last week in New York, I visited Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, which serves 1000 lunches a day. 50 different volunteers make this happen, plus Chef Felipe Saint-Martin and a small but steady kitchen support staff. One thing I love about this place is that they use whole grains and lots of fresh vegetables. Dessert is always a piece of fruit. Offering these nutrient dense staples is tough in an emergency food environment. I was really inspired by their example, and I look forward to visiting with them again, maybe for their fundraiser in May, Farm to Tray.

At work, we are serving lots of vegetables these days. Pickled beets, carrot salad with turnips, and green salad with oranges and grapes. Blueberries are pouring in, free from the USDA commodities program, and somehow, we are getting zillions of grapes through the food bank. The flow of food always intrigues me, but the routes to grains are the ones I want to understand most.

 

 

Tom Edwards is doing something extraordinary with Louismill & MozzaPi in Louisville, Kentucky. I am so grateful I had four whole hours to do a presentation with him before the IACP conference. Tom served grits and beautiful breads for breakfast, and talked about what he was doing with the mill – creating a new model that prioritizes farmers and the grains themselves. He talked about the conversation he had with the Mennonite farmers who are growing his corn, and paying them twice the commodity rate so that they could stop working off-farm.

This is what fuels my fire: the decision to create new relationships between staple crops, from field to mill and mill to me. Thank you Tom, for making such a fantastic place. That day really nourished me.

 

Now I am home for a minute, and the snow is about to pile on us in the Northeast. I’ll be walking to work and making breakfast for lunch for whoever braves the blizzard. I hope you are tucked in snug, like blueberries under a crust – be sure to get or bake some pie for Pi Day, okay?