FROM SCRATCH CLUB

Grain Brains Challenge A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. When Alan challenged me to a cracker duel, I thought I would whomp him with the kind of crackers I mostly make – very stiff flatbreads. But he sent me a beautiful recipe for crackers came out more […]

Honest Weight Food Coop invited Ellie and me to make food for their Food for Thought film series, co-hosted by the Linda, WAMC radio station’s auditorium. The film was A Place at the Table, a documentary about hunger in America. Ellie and I made our favorites: beans and pancakes. Beans are quick with a pressure […]

I have written a lot about breakfast on this blog.  I’ve realized recently that making breakfast is meaningful to me.  I like eating breakfast foods, but I now recognize that, more importantly, the process of cooking breakfast improves my mental health.  When I feel scattered and disorganized, making breakfast helps me to consolidate and settle […]

Grain Brains Challenge A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. I grew up in Mississippi right outside of New Orleans. Down there, every family has a favorite gumbo, and everyone thinks theirs is the perfect recipe. But the truth is gumbo is about as variable as South Louisiana […]

Grain Brains Challenge A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. Early in March, I met a baker who hates flour. Michael Perakovich makes sprouted wheat breads at Columbia County Bread and Granola and his hatred comes from what flour does to people’s bodies. He’s spent two years perfecting […]

Grain Brains Challenge: A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. I never had a scone until I was in college. First week of school the Dean of Students sent out hand-written invitations to the freshmen class, instructing us, in groups of 25 or so, to attend an afternoon […]

FSC Contributor Amy Halloran takes on an a podcast journey to explore the Northeast grain system. Amy’s series on scaling up the northeast grain system provides a wealth of information and serves as an incredible introduction to the world of local grains, and in this episode we continue that conversation. Grains are often left out of the locavore […]

A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. +++ It’s winter, this old house is cold, and my bones need a bowl of chicken soup. Nothing warms the soul like an elixir of pullet. I usually make chunky veggie chicken-soup, skipping rice or noodles. I don’t like […]

A recipe challenge to help you get whole grains into your mouth, not just your kitchen. +++ My friend Amy has been on a grain trip for the last few years, a pretty wild ride from what I’ve seen. Through it, we’ve been talking a lot about our baking habits, her love of pancakes and grains and […]

Editor’s Note: We’re starting this week off with a BANG! I’m pleased to announce that Amy is completing her ‘Scaling Up the Northeast Grain System’ series with next month’s FSC Podcast dedicated to the topic. For her next series, Amy is partnering with her close friend and cookbook author Alan Richardson. They have created a challenge for themselves: […]

If anyone loved me as much as I love pancakes, they’d give me Twelve Days of Pancakes, starting with the perfect griddle and ending with the funnest flours. Luckily, I already have all I need in that department, but if you want to prove your love via pancakes, here are some hints. The perfect griddle […]

When I first started gardening, I couldn’t imagine planting anything in the fall. Sure, I knew about tulip bulbs, but I thought of putting them in the ground as winter storage, kind of like keeping your sweaters safe from moths in summer. I couldn’t wrap my head around plants that didn’t follow the path of […]

The Kneading Conference brought me back to Skowhegan, Maine a couple of weeks ago. I was excited to see the event that fueled the Somerset Grist Mill. I felt like I was going to meet the author of a book I loved. Would I like the writer as much as I liked the book? Or […]

We have been growing wheat for three or four years in our community sharecropping plots.   Wheat is not hard to grow and not all that hard to harvest although there are some pitfalls.  The hard part is removing the teeny wheat berries from the inedible straw and glumes that surround them, which is called threshing.  […]

If it weren’t for my friend Howard, my wheat would still be in the field. When I got home from vacation last Saturday, I found a message that the wheat was ready. Howard had toured my plot, and found the grain passed the crack test. When the wheat is ready, the seed should feel hard, […]