I've been on a bit of a baking kick lately, as you've heard. In the past couple months I made my first zucchini bread, a to-die-for lemon basil bread, and a previously featured yummy carrot cake. All of these have been simple, with minimal chance to screw it up (because, no yeast). While on the topic, there is one crucial piece of advice I'll give anyone trying to make one of these "quick breads," and that is: do not over-mix! A gentle fold is all it takes—and this one is for my fellow watchers of the hilarious Schitt's Creek. As with many things, less is more. 

While I merely dabble in the art of baking, I have all kinds of respect for people who have truly mastered it. It takes the kind of patience I only dream of having, and I do in fact dream of it. Just like I dream of having a house with a big kitchen and a wrap-around porch, like the one I sat on in the breezy August sunshine of Swan Valley, Idaho. In the summer, it will smell like basil and garlic, and in the winter it will smell like vanilla and ginger, and all times of the year, bread will be baking. A floppy-eared dog will be my sous chef, and a spectacular floor-tidy-upper. He will howl to remind me when I inevitably wander off absentmindedly and leave something in the oven. This is my vision. Working on the "manifest" part.

1. Tell us a little bit about how and when you got into baking.
I started to embrace baking while working at Next Step Produce, a small, diverse farm in southern Maryland. They had recently added grains to their usual vegetable rotation and purchased a stone mill in order to sell freshly milled flour at a farmer's market in DC. It was exciting to bake with something I had a hand in growing and important to be able to talk with customers at the market about how to use the flour. A back injury ultimately tipped the scale from farming into baking and I took a very generous apprenticeship position at a transformative bakery in Richmond, VA called Sub Rosa.
 
2. What's your current baking routine like? How frequently do you do it? Where? Any goals?
Up until recently I've been baking six days a week at a local restaurant that's dedicated to working with the farmers and water folk of the Chesapeake Bay region. We made a wide variety of breads using local flour and the shift was from 2am until 11 or noon. While I didn't really get enough rest with that schedule I did love the rhythm of it. Now I'm launching a subscription service for folks to pick up a bread a week. I've been doing some test bakes but the first pickup day is this week so I've mostly been spending time on starting the business. The goal is to have a storefront open by this fall.
 
3. How do you feel while you're baking? This could be physically, mentally or emotionally.
I'm very focused and often slightly overwhelmed (in a good way). Usually there's some combination of mixing, shaping, and baking going on all at once. You don't rush good bread so everything needs to be done on the proper timing meaning you're balancing multiple things at a time. It makes for a beautiful chaos that doesn't allow for time to think about much else. Partially that's the nature of baking and partially that's my nature of trying to get as much done all at once as I can.
 
4. What do you find to be most challenging?
Keeping perspective is hard. You take notes but it's also a very intuitive process since local flour can be very variable from batch to batch. You have to learn to stay grounded in what you know and not second guess yourself too much. I've heard a few bakers talk about the "creep" that can happen where you're 1% off each day and then by the end of 100 days you're 100% off. If you don't stay rooted in what you know works well and have an organized process of decision making it's easy to end up feeling confused and inadequate. Any bread baker will tell you that it's very emotionally difficult when a bake doesn't go well. You've poured a lot of your heart into the bread.