Like a fire!

the wheat was dry! and so we threshed it, collected the wheat berries, ground them up and made some bread, all in one fell swoop!

here is the wheat and the finished collection of grain

now i was going to go way old school and grind this stuff between two rocks, but there is a line between doing cool old school stuff and adding particulate stone material to my foodstuffs. that would be the line.

so instead i hit it with the coffee grinder, did it in stages and here is what i ended up with:

well, sheeeeeet, that them there looks like sum mighty fine whole grain flour!

baking then ensued.

i used a simple recipe of:

3 cps flour

.25 tsp live yeast

fatty pinch o' salt

1.5 cps water (note: seems this was too much water, maybe it was the recipe, maybe it was the flour, shrug...)

mix and let rise for 4 hours

knead up and rise for another 30 min

baked at 350 till it 'looked right'

aaand voila!

yep. pretty tasty lookin. and it was. tasty. it was consumed with butter and honey. it was the noms.

its a waiting game....

i wrapped the grain in a sheet, in the hopes of beating it till it surrendered its sweet wheat berries to me.

alas, when i tried to do this, the sheet was damp to the touch! seems there is a lot more moisture trapped in those little guys than i thought.

this explains the large bundles of wheat, tied up and left in fields.

so now we wait...

beatings later....

grains are just grass with big seeds

after stuffing the grain in the bag, it accompanied me home. it was a perilous 2:30 am bike ride (after work) and some of the seeds already began to break free

yep. that looks like grain alright. patron at bar: i've seen those in my sandwiches! drunk people are so insightful...

but just to be sure, i ate one. yep. tastes like a piece of wholegrain bread.

i should be threshing now, but i need to relax and recover from a night of watching other people get drunk.

sweet!

there is an empty lot on the corner of east pine and summit (capitol hill, seattle) that his been vacant for quite some time too.

we're not talking just one corner, one house plot worth; this lot used to have three bars and a restaurant on it. it runs the entire length of the block.

over time, the neighborhood has used it for various things. there were garage sales, a little impromptu market, some parties and art projects, you get the idea.

the point: along the eastern side of the lot, a lot of plants have grown. grass, some feverfew (good for headaches), blackberries (of course) and... some wheat...

the other day i went out and harvested me some wheat.

i'm going to make bread :)