Cress Spring Bakery: Ruminations: 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Hello!

We're back, bigger and faster and stronger and better. This week will be our first home delivery of the season. And after a gorgeous last day outdoors, the farmer's market moves indoors to Monona Terrace this week, from 7:30 - noon. We will no be baking the week of Thanksgiving, so there will be no delivery on Friday, November 23, and we will not be at the market on Saturday, November 24.

Our pumpkin wild rice bread is available for this week only. We stop making this bread after Thanksgiving, so get it while you can. As we did last year, we will be alternating our two raisin breads, starting off this week with our raisin kamut, a bright sunny bread with lemon zest and a hint of fennel. Next week we'll have our traditional raisin bread with orange and anise. And for Vollkornbrot fans who were frustrated last year, we have more pans this year, so we shouldn't have to worry about selling out early.

The muffins available this week will be pumpkin and raspberry chocolate chip.

The truffles available this week are:

Dark Chocolate

Maple Ginger

You may order boxes of either variety, or mixed boxes. We will mix in whatever quantities you desire. Our truffles will last for several weeks if refrigerated, although for optimum flavor they should be eaten warm. We prefer to have truffle orders by Monday instead of Wednesday, but late orders will usually be accommodated. We will be rotating through our other truffle varieties each week, and will have all of them available for Christmas.

We are simplifying our delivery charges a bit this year. All orders under $9 will be charged $1 extra for delivery. There will be no charge for orders $9 or over.

For those of you new to this list, I always include a quotation or poem of the week. It gives me a chance to inflict writing I enjoy on a captive audience. I have a new favorite poet at the moment, a Wisconsin native who now resides in Montana. You may be seeing a lot of his work here. Here's our poem of the week.

Poetry

My dad was a poet

who didn’t write poems.

When he was serious

he needed to make sense.

Which is understandable

if you know that nonsense

can be a painful place to be from

and he was from there.

Once my heart burst me out of sleep

and urged me run across the river

(or state, or country—I did that, too)

to knock on a girl’s door until she opened it.

I had nothing but my loneliness, my cold,

my desire—no words, not even breath—

so I kissed her and she kissed me back

and the rest makes very little sense as well.

Now I’m an old poet sitting alone by a fire

with his hand on his face, a little drunk, writing

of the blood that made him and the blood

that spun him and turned him upside down

under the same stars that have made and turned

millions, now all dead. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s just a way to keep from feeling alone.

I can hear my dad if I could tell him.

He was easily amused but kind,

which is to say he took our ambitions

and our desires seriously.

In his last years I saw his boyhood

loneliness return, and he sat a long time alone

looking at things that he could not understand,

pictures, rings, pages of writing, my mother.

Good luck, he’d say, with that.

- David Allan Cates

Bread Varieties for November 16 Loaves are 1.5 lbs., unless otherwise noted. Price

Vollkornbrot Organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt 4.50

Whole Wheat Organic whole wheat, water, unrefined sea salt. 4.50

Sesame Wheat Organic whole wheat, water, organic sesame seeds, unrefined sea salt. 5.00

Caraway Rye Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, carob, caraway, 5.00

unrefined sea salt

Kamut Organic whole kamut, water, unrefined sea salt. 5.00

Sunny Spelt Organic whole spelt, organic whole barley, organic whole kamut, 5.50

water, organic sunflower seeds, organic flax seeds, unrefined sea salt.

Potato Kamut Organic whole kamut, water, organic potatoes, organic basil, 5.50

unrefined sea salt.

Raisin Kamut Organic whole kamut, water, organic raisins, organic lemons, 5.50

unrefined sea salt, organic fennel

Expedition Organic whole wheat, water, organic whole rye, org. oats, org. barley, 5.50

org. flax, org. millet, org.corn, org. buckwheat, unrefined sea salt

Rustic French Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, 5.50

organic whole rye, unrefined sea salt.

French Walnut Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, 6.00

organic walnuts, organic whole rye, unrefined sea salt.

Cranberry Walnut Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, organic 6.50

cranberries, organic walnuts, organic rye, unrefined sea salt.

Pumpkin Wild Rice Organic wheat, organic pumpkin, water, organic wild rice, sorghum, 6.50

unrefined sea salt, organic coriander

Big Country 2lbs Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt. 5.50

Big Country 4lbs. Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt 9.00

Granola 1.5 pound bags

Raisin Walnut Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Raisins, Organic Sunflower Oil, 7.00

Organic Walnuts, Organic Oranges, Vanilla, Unrefined Sea Salt

Maple Almond Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Butter, Organic Almonds, 8.00

Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Almond Extract, Unrefined Sea Salt

Cranberry Almond Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Cranberries, Organic Butter, 9.00

Organic Almonds, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Almond Extract, Unrefined Sea Salt

Sweets

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins Organic Whole Spelt, Organic Chocolate Chips, 1.75

Organic Raspberries, Honey, Eggs, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Rye,

Organic Corn, Organic Buckwheat, Organic Millet, Organic Oats, Baking Powder,

Organic Cinnamon, Baking Soda, Unrefined Sea Salt

Pumpkin Muffins Organic pumpkins, Organic Spelt, Maple Syrup, Sorghum, Organic 1.75

Canola Oil, Spices, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Organic Vanilla, Unrefined Sea Salt

Chocolate Fire Cookies Organic Spelt, Organic Butter, Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar, 1.75

Organic Chocolate Chips, Eggs, Organic Cocoa Powder, Organic Oranges, Organic

Cinnamon, Baking Soda, Unrefined Sea Salt, Organic Black Pepper, Organic Cayenne

Chocolate Chip Cookies Organic Chocolate Chips, Organic Whole Wheat, 1.75

Organic Rolled Oats, Organic Butter, Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar,

Eggs, Organic Vanilla, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Unrefined Sea Salt,

Gingersnaps (wheat free) Organic Barley, Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar, Organic Butter, 1.50

Eggs, Organic Ginger, Organic Cinnamon, Baking Soda, Cloves

Trail Cookies (no dairy or eggs) Organic Whole Wheat, Maple Syrup, Organic Raisins, 1.50

Organic Chocolate Chips, Organic Oats, Organic Peanut Butter, Organic Sunflower Oil,

Organic Sunflower Seeds, Sorghum, Organic Peanuts, Organic Walnuts, Organic Vanilla,

Baking Soda, Unrefined Sea Salt

Raisin Walnut Scones Organic Whole Spelt, Milk, Organic Butter, Organic 2.00

Raisins,Organic Unrefined Cane Sugar, Organic Walnuts, Baking Powder,

Unrefined Sea Salt,

Chocolate Chip Scones Organic Whole Wheat , Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, 2.00

Milk, Organic Chocolate Chips, Organic Butter, Organic Unrefined

Cane Sugar, Baking Powder, Organic Vanilla, Unrefined Sea Salt,

Dark Chocolate Truffles:  Organic Chocolate (Chocolate Liquor, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Vanilla), Organic Cream, Organic Butter

Maple Ginger Truffles:  Organic Chocolate (Chocolate Liquor, Sugar, Organic Cocoa Butter), Organic Cream, Organic Butter, Maple Syrup,

   Organic Ginger

Box of 6 - $9.50 Box of 10 - $15.00 Box of 24 - $36.00

Our truffles will last for several weeks if refrigerated, although for optimum flavor they should be eaten warm. We prefer to have truffle orders by Monday instead of Wednesday, but late orders will usually be accommodated.

Orders may be placed by phone or email, and must be in on Wednesday for Friday delivery. We will usually accommodate late orders, but there is a $2 fee for all orders coming in after Wednesday.

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Order Total Under $9.00 $9.00 or over

Delivery Charge $1.00 no charge

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Greetings, comrades of the breadolution,

I hope you're all soaking up the color and the sun and savoring the frosty mornings. We are nearing the end of the outdoor season. Our last outdoor market on the square will be on Saturday, November 10. We will begin the indoor market at Monona Terrace on November 17. Our first home delivery of the season will be on Friday, November 16. Stay tuned for more information as we get closer.

If you would like to be on our home delivery list, just send us an email. For those of you who are new to this list, you will receive an email on Sundays with the ordering menu once we begin delivering. In an effort to amuse, entertain, and occasionally annoy, I take this weekly opportunity to inflict upon you whatever poem or quotation or random bit of drivel that's currently taking up space in my mind. To kick things off, here's our poem of the week, perhaps appropriate for election season shenanigans:

Ladder

But look! The churches keep opening

their mouths like trout left to dry in the grass.

And the corporations don’t fall down - see

how they run:

the blue suits, the black robes, and their President

whose brain is a bug rolling dung.

Of course, there’s blood on the money.

The vampires have always

walked among us.

But so have the trees!

The great stalker called commerce

and the Earth’s primordial solo

continue to be the windows

through which we arrive - one by one - naked,

splashing like birdless birds into the air,

almost blind, begging to be fed.

Why? To become this?

These workaday trolls scared of our newspapers,

revved up ready to buy bigger alarms?

Look how the world rolls around the sun’s gold belly,

how the ocean is so much stranger than its word.

Isn’t everybody still 3/5ths water?

How lonely does a truth have to be

before we bring its blues to our lips?

What we do not sing, what we drown in

not saying -

is already music. And still, we keep

turning from the sound

like two-legged animals all buttoned and zipped

unwilling to recognize this tall ladder of bones

to which we cling briefly with our small teeth.

And because we do not see well into the future

because we are busy taking as much as we can get because

money has infected these days with its prolific germ,

what surrounds us looks like forever

but it is not -

just as today’s wind

with its grim whistle and bruise

is only the weather for a little while,

on past the dying edge of the usual

what they said could never be

begins.

- Tim Seibles

Sunday, April 8, 2012

last home delivery of the season

Cress Spring Bakery Home Delivery for April 13

Greetings,

This will be our last home delivery of the season. We will return to the outdoor market on Saturday, April 21. It's been a pleasure to bring the product of our labors to your doorsteps, and I hope to see many of you on the square.

This will also be the last week to get truffles until November, we do not sell them at the outdoor market.
We prefer to have truffle orders by Monday instead of Wednesday, but late orders will usually be accommodated.

The muffins available this week will be ginger spice and raspberry chocolate chip.

If you're a fan of the potato kamut bread, you might want to stock up. We switch to rosemary kamut for a few months starting next week, usually switching sometime in August.

I was awake this morning pondering the way we feel emotions so distinctively in physical locations - butterflies in our stomach, a pain in the neck, joy in our hearts, or a broken heart - and I was wondering if a heart ever really breaks. Generally it goes on about it's work, pumping blood to all the nooks and crannies of our existence, but is there a physical manifestation when we feel pain or joy so clearly in that vital organ? A broken heart really feels like a broken heart, but does that shattered heart truly heal itself to become stronger? Is there scar tissue? Does a heart swelling with pride or love or the beauty of this world actually get larger? In the midst of my wondering, I opened a Mary Oliver book to our poem of the week:

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it

nothing fancy.

But is seems impossible.

Whatever the subject, the morning sun

glimmers it.

The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open

and becomes a star.

The ants bore into the peony bud and there is the dark

pinprick well of sweetness.

As for the stones on the beach, forget it.

Each one could be set in gold.

So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds

were singing.

And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music

out of their leaves.

And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and

beautiful silence

as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we're not too

hurried to hear it.

As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs

even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,

and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,

so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being

locked up in gold.

- Mary Oliver

Bread Varieties for April 13 Loaves are 1.5 lbs., unless otherwise noted. Price

Vollkornbrot Organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt 4.00

Whole Wheat Organic whole wheat, water, unrefined sea salt. 4.00

Sesame Wheat Organic whole wheat, water, organic sesame seeds, unrefined sea salt. 4.50

Caraway Rye Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, carob, caraway, 4.50

unrefined sea salt

Kamut Organic whole kamut, water, unrefined sea salt. 4.50

Sunny Spelt Organic whole spelt, organic whole barley, organic whole kamut, 5.00

water, organic sunflower seeds, organic flax seeds, unrefined sea salt.

Potato Kamut Organic whole kamut, water, organic potatoes, organic basil, 5.00

unrefined sea salt.

Raisin Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, organic raisins, 5.00

organic oranges, anise, unrefined sea salt.

Expedition Organic whole wheat, water, organic whole rye, org. oats, org. barley, 5.00

org. flax, org. millet, org.corn, org. buckwheat, unrefined sea salt

Rustic French Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, 5.00

organic whole rye, unrefined sea salt.

French Walnut Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, 5.50

organic walnuts, organic whole rye, unrefined sea salt.

Cranberry Walnut Organic unbleached wheat flour, water, organic whole wheat, organic 6.00

cranberries, organic walnuts, organic rye, unrefined sea salt.

Big Country 2lbs Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt. 5.00

Big Country 4lbs. Organic whole wheat, organic whole rye, water, unrefined sea salt 8.00

Granola 1.5 pound bags

Raisin Walnut Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Raisins, Organic Sunflower Oil, 6.50

Organic Walnuts, Organic Oranges, Vanilla, Unrefined Sea Salt

Maple Almond Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Butter, Organic Almonds, 7.75

Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Almond Extract, Unrefined Sea Salt

Cranberry Almond Organic Oats, Maple Syrup, Organic Cranberries, Organic Butter, 9.00

Organic Almonds, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Almond Extract, Unrefined Sea Salt

Sweets

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins Organic Whole Spelt, Organic Chocolate Chips, 1.50
Organic Raspberries, Honey, Eggs, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Rye,
Organic Corn, Organic Buckwheat, Organic Millet, Organic Oats, Baking Powder,
Organic Cinnamon, Baking Soda, Unrefined Sea Salt

Ginger Spice Muffins Organic Rye, Organic Barley, Sorghum, Honey, Organic Sunflower Oil, 1.25

Eggs, Cinnamon, Ginger, Organic Vanilla, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Nutmeg,

Cloves, Unrefined Sea Salt