From sprouts to loaves

Tonight I took a pan bread making class at Grand Central. Because of a small error made by the teacher of the class, we ended up with mounds and mounds of extra dough. I mean mounds. A mound which filled an industrial size mixing bowl. Mounds that had to be transported not by hand, but via rolling carts. 

Tonight, we were showered not only with dough, but also with dinner. By the end of the evening I’d enjoyed two cups of wine (served in plastic juice cups), a heap of gooey baked mac and cheese (made from what Piper referred to as cheese butts—the ends of the blocks of cheese from the slicer) which filled 1/2 my dinner plate, a beautiful salad of spring's newest, crisp greens, a cup of white bean and tomato soup, a slice of coconut cake with fluffy white frosting, and a slice of pineapple upside down cake. I brought home four loaves of bread and enough dough to make four more. It was a night of learning, of generosity and of excess. And it also marked the completion of a cycle.

Just about one year ago, I took a trip to Walla Walla, Washington with the owners of Grand Central to visit some of the farmers who make up the Shepherds Grain Collective. GC was looking to find a way to source 100% of their flour from the cooperative. Tonight, Mel told me that about two weeks ago they made the switch, and that the flour we worked with tonight likely came from the grain which was only just sprouting up under our feet as we walked the Walla Walla wheat fields last spring. 

As my friend and I left class, the cab of my truck filled with the scent of freshly baked bread. Just imagine it. A tiny cab and eight loaves of bread. I nearly drove us off the road and onto the sidewalk, my head drunk on the sweet, yeasty perfume. Things feel right in the world.