Little Tastes of Shepherd’s Grain/ by Jessica Prince, Dahlia Lounge Private Dining and Hotel Andra Catering
Little Tastes of Shepherd’s Grain last week was a bushel of fun!
We were joined by Karl, Fred, and their entourage of farmers to learn all about the truly amazing and inspiring journey of building their company with the goal of bringing sustainable, local wheats to market.
In cahoots with the scientists at Eastern Washington U, they have even been instrumental in promoting new strains of wheat with noticeably improved flavor (which seems to come from whatever it is that makes wheat yellow, largely bred out because of the desire for pretty white noodles, etc. I can’t remember all the details, but it was science-y!) And that’s just for starters. Here are the guys…. sans entourage…. avec martinis!
Our head baker, Wendy, talked about various leavening methods we use to bake breads with very different flavors and characteristics with identical ingredients, while Tom Douglas reminisced about bringing grapes from his yard twenty years ago to start our levain “chef.” How cool!
Brock, our Dahlia chef, had agonized over what to make for the tastes, and finally decided on a brilliantly simple series of preparations based upon the parts of the wheat berry in all its glorious simplicity: wheat berry tabbouleh, bran crepes with goat butter, and wheat germ porridge with fireweed honey.
Please join us for the next Little Tastes featuring World Spice on Tuesday, March 30th!
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