I spend a larger than average amount of time, I'm told, sourcing ingredients for the bakery. Is it as local as possible? Is it organic, or grown with best practices? If I can't find it locally, can I substitute something? If I can't, how do I source it in a way that aligns with my values? In order to make things in the way I want to make them and work with local farmers, that can mean I harvest my own produce order weekly. I picked black currants at a friend's orchard one week, and in a different friend's backyard the next. Plums might come from Champlain Orchards where I drive up to pick, or might come from Slice of Earth via Crossroads Farmstand. Here's my sourcing list currently. It will change, and I probably won't update this as often as I should, but if you have a question, feel free to email strawbrookbakery@gmail.com.
FLOUR
White flours:
Moulins de Soulange, Quebec
Moulins de Cedres, Quebec
Whole grain flours:
Whole spelt: Milanaise, Quebec
Whole einkorn: Farmer Ground, Trumansburg NY
Whole rye: Farmer Ground milled at Red Hen, Trumansburg NY/ Middlesex VT
Whole wheat: Elysian Fields milled at Red Hen, Shoreham VT/ Middlesex VT
Others:
Cornmeal: Farmer Ground milled at Red Hen, Trumansburg NY/ Middlesex VT
Buckwheat, teff: sometimes I buy small quantities of organic toasted buckwheat or organic US grown teff to mill into flour in the small mill I have at the bakery.
Brown rice flour (organic, used for dusting bread so it doesn't stick while proofing): Milanaise, Quebec.
Dairy:
Butter: Cabot Creamery, Cabot VT (they source dairy throughout New England, I believe, so while it is a VT company, they're not working with 100% VT product)
Milk: Strafford Organic Creamery, Strafford VT. Occasionally will use McNamara Dairy milk if I can't source Strafford that week.
Buttermilk: Kate's Buttermilk. Organic, made in Arundel ME with dairy sourced from New England, not just Maine.
Cheeses:
Sweet Rowan Farm, Irasburg VT
Maplebrook Farm, Bennington VT
Parish Hill Creamery, Putney VT
Vermont Shepherd, Westminster VT
Spring Brook Farm, Reading VT
Cabot Creamery, Cabot VT
There will be others that I pick up here and there, but these are the usual suspects.
Bakery Staples and Miscellany
Sugar: True Naturals organic cane sugar, non-GMO, packed in New Jersey. Via Bakemark.
Honey: However Wild Honey, Bennington VT
Organic sunflower seeds: European, packed in Bulgaria. Via Bakemark.
Organic rolled oats: Grain Millers via Bakemark. Oats are grown in Canada on 6 different farms. Sourcing isn't totally transparent here.
Salt: Giusto's Vita-Grain, San Francisco, CA;
Saltworks, Woodinville WA;
Alternatively use Korean sea salt from H-Mart in Boston. Salt is infuriating to source ethically and affordably. Cargill is a terrible company responsible for a great deal of deforestation in the Amazon in Brazil, but they're one of the few options. There are small batch sea salt companies on the East Coast, but few of them, and hugely expensive. The salt I buy from Saltworks is from South Korea, and it ships to me from across the country in plastic bags. Shipping is as much as the salt costs. This whole process makes me feel nuts.
Spices: Burlap & Barrel, Frontier Organic, Old Friends Farm via Food Connects (MA and VT), Singing Dog Vanilla. Spices will be organic or single origin. Trying to find a new vanilla source, hoping my friend from Oaxaca will connect me with someone he knows in Mexico.
Fresh cake yeast: A mystery to me. Comes from Bakemark, and they hate talking sourcing.
Most of everything is sourdough, but the milk bread/ burger buns and the korvapuusti have a touch of fresh cake yeast in them because I a) like the texture better and b) need them to fit into my schedule in a specific way. Adding .2% fresh yeast to the cardamom buns means they proof more reliably and within a shorter window of time.
Eggs!: Nadine the librarian. Also sometimes Hogwash Farm if Leslie has extra.
PRODUCE:
Not going to list items by farm here, too complicated. Majority of my produce comes from Hurricane Flats (spring, summer, fall, fresh crops vs storage crops) and Wood Frog Flowers, aka Marya Merriam growing in Brookfield VT, who grows storage crops- winter squash, potatoes, and onions/ garlic for me.
Hurricane Flats, South Royalton VT
Crossroads Farm, Post Mills and Norwich VT
-I also get some stone fruit from Slice of Earth, based in Wolcott VT, via Crossroads Farmstand. SoE take a truck down to farms in PA, GA, NY, VA, and some other mid-Atlantic states, buy fruit directly from farms down there, and truck it up here themselves so we can have access to peaches, plums, and cherries a little earlier than if we just had VT/ NH fruit. The sourcing isn't as clear cut here, I don't always know what farms the fruit is coming from.
4 Corners Farm, Newbury VT
Luna Blue Farm, Tunbridge VT
Wood Frog Flowers, Brookfield VT
Poverty Lane Orchards, Lebanon NH
Scott Farm, Dummerston VT
Champlain Orchards, Shoreham VT
Sherburne Farms, Pomfret VT
I also grow some herbs and summer squash here in raised beds, my soil isn't good to grow in. My mom has some currant and blueberry bushes she and I have planted over the years. Marya's housemate has enormous black currant bushes I pick every year.