Bread Fest Winners (and thanks)

Lisa, our Education, Demos, & Events Coordinator, wrote this to everyone who entered the Bread Fest competition on March 1st:

Dear Bread Fest Participants,

I hope this finds you well!

It was such a fun day last Saturday, and so inspiring to see all your bread creations.

Our Bread Fest winners are Lisa Maria Andreoli Steinberg (sourdough), Jessica Lockie (yeasted), and Diane Nichols (gluten-free). We didn’t have any youth entrants.

The store was unable to confirm that the previously announced sourdough winner is an amateur home baker, which is why some astute folks might notice a different name in the sourdough category than was announced in person last Saturday.

Many thanks to NOFA-VT, Red Hen, Orchard Hill Bread Works, and Taza Bread for their participation. Much appreciation to Singing Cedars Apiaries, Cabot Creamery, Nitty Gritty, and Farmer Ground for prize donations. Deep gratitude to the master bakers who did the judging and helped shepherd this project from start to finish: Noah Elbers from Orchard Hill Bread Works and Sarah Schuldenfrei of Bread from the Earth. Thanks to Jonathan Stevens for giving a really great book talk in the afternoon. And, most of all, thank you to all our participants, who worked hard and bravely entered this contest; we know it takes courage and vulnerability.

It was a real pleasure to hear the judges at work as they sampled your breads. They had so much fun! My main takeaways are these: I don’t recall hearing the judges describe any loaf as over-baked or over-fermented. This is right in line with Jonathan Stevens’ message in The Hungry Ghost Bread Book: go for a bolder crust, a ripe dough, and don’t handle it too much before it goes in the oven. Lemmetellya, your loaves look so much more beautiful than mine at this point! 🙂 I need to keep practicing. Thanks for inspiring me to do so! It is fun to have a lifelong practice to refine, which, along the way, feeds our loved ones.

Happy baking, and keep up the awesome work,

Lisa