bake with me?

been wanting to do this for a while now, and finally the day has come – bake with me!

yup, i’ve decided it’s time to share all of the secrets of whole grain bread baking, and i wanna do it with YOU, on Sunday October 5 at 7:30pm. don’t be shy, if ya wanna come bake some bread, sign up here. there are only 10 spots for this class, so if’n ya want in, then sign up quick. but fret not, if ya miss this one, i’ll be doing more soon.

anyway, enough shameless self-promotion, let’s look at some pretty stuff –

me and my sweet lady Cathy went on a superb backpacking trip a few weeks ago, which culminated at that very pretty swimming hole you see right there. it was deeper than we could even see, and you know we jumped right in, hootin and hollerin the whole way down. i would love to share it’s location with you, but i’ve been sworn to secrecy by the very trusting fellow who told me about it. and when someone tells you a secret, you keep your lips sealed. right? right.

but here’s a hint – it looked like this on the way there –

ain’t cali just the best???

but hold the phone, ya know what else was the best? a couple weeks ago i hauled my butt up to Mt. Vernon, Washington for The Grain Gathering, and it got me so so so excited about what’s happening right now with grains, bread, baking – we’re in the midst of something very special. it was a gathering of some of the most badass folks in the field these days – bakers, farmers, miller, scientists, maltsters, brewers, you name it. and check this out – i even got to put on Kiko Denzer’s hat for just a sec –

it felt really really good.

what else is up? ya know, baking bread, trying oh so hard to make it look like this, which every once in a while it does, and makes me all warm and fuzzy inside –

look out, there may be a pot of gold at the end of that one.

we’re continuing to experiment with some new breads, and i’m stoooked to share this next one with ya – 100% einkorn. what is einkorn, you may ponder, oh curious reader? it’s the mother of all wheats. when i first started baking i learned about this ancient grain and i was very intrigued, i just said to myself, “one day i’m going to make bread out of that.” and friends, we’ve been making bread with this old grain and i’ll tell you what – it may just be my favorite bread. but hey, you don’t have to take my word for it, we’re trying our best to work it into production, and soon so soon we’ll have it for sale at The Mill in very limited quantities, probably 5 loaves a day or so. it ain’t a showy loaf, it looks like this –

but good god, that flavor, it’s really something remarkable. if’n you’re curious come on by in the next few weeks, we should have it sorted out by the beginning of October.

which reminds me – NO BREAD ON WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 24 !!!! sorry my dudes, we will miss ya, but i’m taking the whole bakery staff on a retreat to somewhere special up in the woods. not to worry – The Mill will remain open as always, and there’ll be plenty of coffee and tea and toast and pastries…

which brings me to another important point – here at JBB we’re going to focus all of our energy on bread, starting next week. what does that mean? it means that at The Mill we’re going to start working with some of the most badass pastry folks around, and we’ll be offering up their goods for your enjoyment at The Mill. we’ve been making our pastries in house since the beginning, but as time has marched on i’ve realized that bread is where my heart is, and in order to do the types of things i’m most interested in, we’ve gotta narrow our focus. don’t worry, we’re still making pizza –

because pizza is just bread with delicious stuff on it. and obviously we’re going to keep doing toast, don’t be silly. more to come on those changes, don’t wanna bore with it all here and now… but now i’m bored, so i’ll check ya later you sexy little bunnies.

❤ j