Kneading Conference 2010

From seed to loaf…How do we get there from here?

Bakers from all over the country joined together with millers, grain growers, and experts in soil and sustainable farming practices last month for the 2010 Kneading Conference held in Skowhegan, Maine. We were honored to take part, arriving each day as the sun was rising to fire up our Le Panyol wood fired ovens.

Over the past four years, we’ve seen the conference stem from a small passionate group of oven builders, bakers and local innovators, to an event that has gained national recognition.

Like a fine loaf of artisan bread, this year’s presenters, attendees and volunteers, yet again, rose to the occasion. Providing their own expertise, enthusiasm and open minds to make connections and close the gaps in our local food systems from the ground up.

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QUIMBY FAMILY FOUNDATION GRANT

August 2, 2010:  Super news! The Kneading Conference has been awarded a major grant by the Quimby Family Foundation in the amount of $48,000.  The letter from Hannah Quimby announcing the Foundation’s generous decision stated that Heart of Maine Resource, Conservation & Development (the fiscal sponsor and bloodline to the Kneading Conference and Maine Artisan Bread Fair) was selected to receive funding because “your goals and mission most closely align with our foundation’s funding goals.  We are truly inspired by the work that you have been doing in the state of Maine.”

The funds will be used to expand the educational programs offered by the Kneading Conference.  With this wonderful gift the steering committee will build a portable baking kitchen and commercial scale portable wood-fired masonry oven.  When not in use, the oven will be housed under its soon-to-be-constructed shelter at the Somerset Grist Mill in Skowhegan where it can be used for fundraisers and community events.  The new portable baking kitchen will afford the Kneading Conference the opportunity to take hands-on bread workshops to school children and to areas in Maine beyond Somerset County.

Dusty Dowse, director of the Maine Artisan Bread Fair, responded to the news (once he had calmed down) by stating that “the overarching goals of the Kneading Conference and Maine Artisan Bread Fair are to inform and excite people about returning Maine to a grain producing state, a position it enjoyed in the past, and to show the employment possibilities in small grain farming and artisan baking.”

We invite you to watch for the oven rumbling down the road toward your town! Please join in the kneading and help us invigorate new possibilities and old traditions in the communities of Maine.
If you would like to set up a bread-making demonstration in your school or community, or you would like to become involved as a volunteer, please contact wendyhebb@roadrunner.com.

At the 2010 KNEADING Conference

I was struck by the profound convergence of topics that make the Kneading Conference timely. A reporter commented that it seems the event is more than just a baking conference, you get to hear about philosophies of baking and farming too. Indeed, from Fred Kirschenman’s introduction about the importance of building healthy soils to heal the earth, reverse damaging climate trends and grow healthy crops, to Jeffrey Hamelman’saddress reminding us the importance of crafting bread with our hands, the real food revolution was never more apparent than at the Kneading Conference this year. I feel so fortunate to be living at a time when the world is reawakening to the importance of real food grown nearby, including real bread, and grains grown and milled locally.
~Amber Lambke, Chair

The Countdown Begins…

All of us here at Maine Wood Heat Company are getting “fired up” about this year’s Kneading Conference and Maine Artisan Bread Fair. The countdown has begun, the schedule is set, the presenter’s are lined up, and the ovens are ready to be lit…

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Farm Cuisine at the 2010 KNEADING Conference

Each summer at the Kneading Conference Billi Barker and Firefly Catering take the term “conference cuisine” to new heights. The raw ingredients that Billi sources from local farms begin the day as a living tableau of color, texture, and shapes. When she and her cooks finish chopping, stirring, kneading, roasting, and plating, we sit down together to satisfying meals, a pleasure that brings participants and presenters to the Conference, year after year.

The 2010 Menu:

Thursday Breakfast:
Coffee Cake
Butterworks Farm Yogurt and Granola
Fresh Fruit
Coffee, Tea & Milk

Thursday Lunch:
Five Onion Focaccia with Roasted Vegetables & Goat Cheese
Fennel & Green Bean Salad
Leafy Green Salad with Light Fruity Dressing
Cookies
Lemonade, Coffee, Tea & Milk

Thursday Dinner:
Lamb-Vegetable & Vegetable Kabobs
Warm Chickpea Salad with Eggplant & Zucchini
Couscous with Roasted Vegetables & Currants
Leafy Green Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Bread & Butter
Blueberry-Cardamom Pie with Whipped Cream
Lemonade, Coffee,Tea

Friday Breakfast:
Coffee cake
Butterworks Farm Yogurt & Granola
Fresh Fruit
Coffee, Tea

Friday Lunch:
Leafy Green Salad with Fresh Vegetables
Grilled Chicken
Lentil and Cracked Grain Salad
2 Vinaigrettes available
Bread & Butter
Lemonade, Coffee, Tea

Meredith Goad: Whatever you knead

Don’t loaf around about registering if you want to attend the popular Kneading Conference, where you can learn anything you want about bread and grains.

By Meredith Goad mgoad@pressherald.com
Staff Writer

It may seem early to be thinking about a conference that doesn’t happen until July.

click image to enlarge

But for this particular conference, it may be a good idea to plan ahead. If past years are any indication, bakers and bread-heads will be turning up in droves for the fourth annual Kneading Conference and Artisan Bread Fair in Skowhegan July 29-31.

The conference is an annual gathering of professional and home bakers, chefs, oven builders, millers, farmers experimenting with growing local grains, and people with an interest in sustainable agriculture and what it can do for rural economies.  Read full article here:

Celebrating Bread from Earth to Hearth

Celebrating Bread from Earth to Hearth
By Holli Cederholm

The Kneading Conference, held annually in Skowhegan, Maine, brings together people who love bread: from growing and milling the grains to baking and tasting the finished product, and everything in between. Each year amateur and professional bakers, farmers, earth oven enthusiasts and food fanatics gather for two days of seminars, hands-on workshops, social networking and, of course, delicious food.

Finding a Niche While Filling a Need
Growing grain in Maine is not new. Grain production in the northeastern United States dates back to the first European settlers, and even earlier if you include the maize cultivated by indigenous Americans. Somerset County, where the Kneading Conference now occurs, was a hub of wheat production in the mid 1800s; on average wheat grown in the area fed over 100,000 people annually.

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Maine Wheat a vision of the future – From King Arthur Flour

When Tod Bramble, director of bakery and foodservice sales for King Arthur Flour, told me he was interested in having us sponsor a grain growing and baking conference in Skowhegan, Maine, I returned a blank stare followed by, “What?”

Didn’t he know I had just posted a blog about our fantastic visit to the wheat fields of Kansas, highlighting the terrific quality of the grain grown there and showing how our consistent flour was dependent upon Midwest grain?  I thought, won’t people be confused by this apparent contradiction?

Then I met with the event’s organizers one beautiful, unseasonably warm March day in Portland, Maine. And it all made sense.

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Fred Kirschenmann Interview with Grist

Fred Kirschenmannis a long-time organic farmer with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He holds positions at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture University and at the New York-based Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Fred proudly embodies the title of “agri-intellectual,” a term derisively coined by conventional farmer Blake Hurst in the right-wing magazine The American.

See Interview Here.

Fred Kirschenmannis a long-time organic farmer with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He holds positions at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture University and at the New York-based Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Fred proudly embodies the title of “agri-intellectual,” a term derisively coined by conventional farmer Blake Hurst in the right-wing magazine The American. See Interview Here.