Overview

Kneading Conference West is a three day event designed to inspire and educate novice and professional bakers, grain growers, millers, wheat breeders, wood-fired oven enthusiasts, food entrepreneurs, food writers, and anyone who loves to eat hand-crafted breads.  The purpose is to bring together people who, by exchanging skills, experiences, and ideas, will invigorate the rebuilding of regional grain systems.

Workshops span topics from small-scale grain growing and milling to artisan bread and pastry baking to wood-fired oven construction. On the last afternoon a field trip will take participants to a farm that grows grain, a mill, and a bakery that will demonstrate using the local flour in bread.  Registration is $300 and includes delicious meals, made from scratch from local harvests.

The Kneading Conference West grows out of the very successful Kneading Conference held annually in Skowhegan, Maine, now in its sixth (www.kneadingconference.com).  Participants arrive primarily from the Eastern Seaboard and Canada.  We anticipate people will come to Mount Vernon from British Columbia and Los Angeles and all points in between.   The Kneading Conference West (www.kneadingconferencewest.com) will differ in details from the Maine Kneading Conference but the descriptions of the latter in the New York Times and Gastronomica articles, posted on the Kneading Conference West  website, provide an excellent overview of both events.

The more people know, the greater their interest in local grains.