Kneading Conference Impact

True Stories from the  Kneading Conference: how lessons learned during the conference take shape after everyone returns home.

Somerset Grist Mill: Two of the Kneading Conference founders, Amber Lambke, a speech therapist, and Michael Scholz, a baker, realized farmers couldn’t be encouraged to grow grain if there were no grist mills to process their harvests. So the speech therapist and the baker went on a search to find an enterprising miller. Their quest took them through much of New England, eastern Canada and Kansas and eventually led them to two enterprising entrepreneurs with a strong commitment to their town and to the idea of restoring local grain farming: each other.

They purchased the vacant 1850s county jail in downtown Skowhegan and began drawing up plans to convert it into a commercial grist mill.  Amber took a course in milling in Kansas. The new partners anticipate producing their first pounds of flour this September. www.somersetgristmill.com

Sandwich Isle Bread Company: After 20 years and producing 2.5 million hotel dinner rolls, Kevin Cabrera wanted to get back to baking bread that was more satisfying, for himself and for people who love a loaf of fresh-baked bread. He also wanted to introduce handcrafted bread to all those who had never eaten bread that wasn’t from a plastic bag bought at the grocery store. According to Kevin, who lives in Hawaii with his wife Kay, “we were lucky enough to attend the first annual Kneading Conference in Maine in 2007″.

“I was finally able to bake in the Le Panyol, a dome shaped wood-fired masonry oven I had been researching on-line,” said Kevin. “It’s even heat and high temperatures made possible the kinds of bread I had always dreamed of, and made baking them a celebration of the craft. I had to have one for Hawaii, and that was that. I decided to build one on a trailer so I could take it to farmer’s markets, schools and private parties.” Kevin placed an order with the factory in France, and with the help of his friends and supporters, and after “many, many hours of mortar-mixing, wood-chopping, steel-grinding, paper-pushing and nail-biting, Sandwich Isle Bread Company was fired up.” www.sandwichislebread.com.

Pasta Fresca: As participants of the Skowhegan Farmers’ Market, Bob and Mary Burr of Blue Ribbon Farm routinely brainstormed about new products to introduce at their market and they kept coming back to fresh pasta. So when Amber Lambke and Mike Scholz decided to turn the Old Skowhegan jail into a grain mill, the Burrs knew they had found a source for freshly ground Maine flour and “Pasta Fresca at Blue Ribbon Farm” was born.

Pasta Fresca is a perfect example of how the Kneading Conference has had the most profound ripple effect. First by influencing Amber and Michael’s decision to open a milling business and then by encouraging Maine farmers to grow grains.  It was the excitement of locally grown and ground grains that gave Mary and Bob the inspiration for a unique value-added product that they could make on their farm with their eggs and vegetables, flour from the new mill, and cheese from local producers.  www.blueribbon.com.