On Tuesday, we celebrated Ben’s birthday.  As you may remember, we’re a big fan of birthday pies around here, and so at Ben’s request I made Pascal Rigo’s Caramel-Pecan Chocolate Tart, from our favorite American Boulangerie.  With the help of my, um, assistant pastry chef Ella (just don’t tell her she’s not the main chef), ...
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Ok, so maybe “let the craziness continue” would be more appropriate, but truly, this is crunch time folks!  This week we’re preparing for holiday baking at Wheatberry, doing our best to get as many CSA grain shares distributed as humanly possible before the holidays, and also .  . . trying to celebrate some holidays ourselves.  ...
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Today – cold, raining.  November weather at last.  Everyone cranky, scrambling to write our NE SARE grant before deadline, preparing for a crazy frenzy of Thanksgiving baking tomorrow (cranberry pecan bread made with local wheat! pies!) , meetings, cleaning grain with some wonderful help down at the Granary.  Or rather, sitting in the car, nursing ...
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Bring on the gratitude, I say.
I wanted to take a moment to say how I got started with gratitude Friday, since a few of you have asked.  Last winter, during a particularly rough patch with Ella, I read an article in the wonderful Yoga Journal about keeping a gratitude journal as a way to open ...
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Whew!
Well, this past two weeks have been quite, um, interesting, on all fronts.  Home, bakery, Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain, there have been lots of ups and downs.  You, too?
I’ve been loving doing the Ten Steps posts, and all the amazing feedback, but I’m going to take a little break before moving on to the next ...
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Yesterday we threw a farewell party for our employee Kate, who had been a steady, amazing presence at Wheatberry for two rollercoaster years.  As a thank you, we had a potluck with some friends and current staff, and I added the above embroidery to the apron I made her last spring.  I did the embroidery ...
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One of the things I’m most excited about making once we get our grain and bean share (and it’s hard to pick, believe me!) is warm breakfast cereal.  I grew up eating oatmeal, and also cheese  grits, but I recently discovered other whole grain cereals.  Man are they yummy!  Bring on the cracked grains in ...
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The idea of locally grown bread has been floating around our region for decades, but with high quality grain flooding the market the economics simply weren’t there. Two winters ago, when grain shortages began to rear their ugly head and commodity prices rocketed up, we decided the time was right and struck out to develop ...
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(photo by Ben Lester)
Oh it’s good to be home.  We had a great time at Animal Powered Field Days in Tunbridge, Vermont.  We saw lots of draft horses of all kinds, oxen, mules, and even . . . draft goats!  That’s right, little draft goats in halters hitched to tiny sleds.  I’m not quite sure ...
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It’s giveaway time, folks!
For our first giveaway, we are offering TWO lucky folks two loaves of local bread, one whole meal, and one with sifted flour (using the amazing new mill!)  These will be sourdough loaves, made by Ben at Wheatberry with wheat grown right here in Hadley MA at Alan Zuchowski’s Lazy Acres Farm, ...
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