One of the things I enjoyed the most about the 2015 Kneading Conference in Maine was attending the Artisan Bread Festival on Saturday. At the festival, I had the opportunity to meet local and regional bakers as well as grain growers.
Some of the bakers who showcased their breads had been to the Kneading Conference in the past. They were inspired to start their own business and it was neat to hear their stories and learn how far they have come along their bread-baking journey.
As I made my way around the different vendors, I had so much fun chatting with them and discussing bread. One baker caught my attention because he made sprouted breads. This was Doug of Columbia County Breads and Granola. I got so engrossed in the conversation, I forgot to ask if I could take a photo of him and his booth. You can find out more about his breads in my Sprouted Wheat Bread Review. Here is a photo of some of the breads he sent me to sample.
The next baker I had the opportunity to meet was Derek DeGeer of Hootenanny. He was singing tunes and selling bread. He has a really neat story about how he ended up selling breads at the Artisan Bread Festival.
He attended the Kneading Conference a few years ago and got into making breads. Then he decided he would start selling breads for a living. He also does other artistic things, but I’ll let you read his bio to find out about his other interests.
He had all sorts of delicious breads, but the one that I sampled was a Buckwheat and Rye Sourdough. I brought one home with me and thoroughly enjoyed the flavor and texture. It was so good, I’ve been trying to recreate it from taste. As of the date of this post, I’m still working on it.
I walked around taking photos of breads and visiting with the vendors. There were so many wonderful breads and lovely bread bakers. Among the breads, I also found bags of wheat and flour. So many bags of flour. I wanted to bring home samples of all of them, but I didn’t.
I also met Aubergine Giroux and Sam Mudge of Grange Corner Farm. They grow rye on their farm, and I tried some rye cookies made with their rye flour. The cookies were so good. Aubergine has an awesome blog at kitchenvignettes.blogspot.com where you’ll find the recipe for the rye cookies among other goodies and beautiful photos and videos.
After enjoying all of the scenery inside, I went outside to visit the vendors displaying their loaves outdoors. I met the folks from Bakehouse Back 40, Spruce Mill Farm & Kitchen, Mountainside Bakery, Aurora Mills & Farm, and Oats Any Time, to name a few. I also got to see and sample the breads that were made during the production baking workshop at the kneading conference.
Here is my parade of breads. There were some pretty awesome loaves on display from the production workshop and from the numerous vendors who attended the festival. My photos got a little bit out of order so I don’t know exactly which breads belong to what vendor (unless they are labeled) but all of the breads were photo-worthy.
I enjoyed the Kneading Workshop, but I think the highlight of my Maine trip was the Artisan Bread Festival because I got to meet so many other bakers and local wheat growers. It was really motivating to chat with all of the vendors, farmers and cheese makers from the surrounding areas. I bought several loaves of bread and some pastries which my son and I enjoyed on the drive back to Georgia. A couple of breads actually made it back with us and we savored them for the next couple of days.
Two breads still linger in my memory and I have already started working on recreating them. One was the sourdough buckwheat rye from Hootenanny that I mentioned earlier and the other one was a sourdough rosemary bread from Borealis Bread. Jim of Borealis Bread taught the class on spelt that I attended the last day of the workshop. His delicious sourdough rosemary bread was made with white flour, but I’ve been working on a version that incorporates spelt. I’ve been taking my time developing these two breads, but so far so good.
Happy Baking!
Cathy
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