Lee Andrew Thomas - Flour lab: an at-home guide to milling grains, making flour, baking, and cooking

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Even though in many ways I feel as if my career is just starting, I have to credit my eclectic background and my mentors and friends for making this book possible. For without the education and guidance along the way, I wouldnt have been able to begin to understand how to go about changing the pastas, breads, and cakes I love into fresh-milled glory. Thank you to Marc Vetri for trusting me enough to invest in my first little mill. Grazie alla squadra dellOsteria della Brughiera per la conoscenza e la passione. Many recipes are the product of the tireless collaboration and dedicated testing by my friends Jeff Kozlowski and Josh Pickens of the Brooklyn Bread Lab. I am indebted to the profound knowledge and guidance of JD McLelland. I cannot thank Washington State University Bread Lab enough for their incredible contribution to grain culture; I am in awe of your perseverance. Danke schn, Sabine Kray, for generously hosting Katie in Berlin and a shout-out to Zach, Karla, and Aziz for letting her crash in NYC and rescuing her from hellacious NJ Transit trips.

Katie and I want to thank our editor and biggest advocate, Amanda Englander, who is as devoted to pizza, pasta, pastry, and bread as we are. Thank you, Joj, for the sandwiches, vino, love, and support. We are grateful to Andrew Thomas Lee for his stunning photos. To Pam Yung and Hans Fama, thank you for your thoughtful commentary, feedback, and testing. And finally, thanks to the whole Clarkson Potter teamStephanie Huntwork, Christine Tanigawa, Heather Williamson, Erica Gelbard, Stephanie Davis, Gabrielle Van Tassel, and our publisher, Aaron Wehner.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ADAM LEONTI is a Brooklyn-born, Maine-bred chef and baker. He began cooking as a child, preparing meals alongside his Sicilian grandfather and Neapolitan grandmother, and took his first kitchen job at age fourteen. In 2008 he became the chef de cuisine at Vetri, a critically acclaimed Philadelphia institution that won accolades including Philadelphia magazines Best Italian Restaurant, was a James Beard Foundation Award finalist for Outstanding Restaurant, and was included in Travel + Leisure magazines Best Italian Restaurants in the U.S. In 2012, Adam was named one of Forbes magazines prestigious 30 Under 30 professionals in the food and wine industry, as well as an Eater Young Gun. In 2015, Adam founded the Brooklyn Bread Lab, a mill and bakery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Outside of the kitchen, Adam finds inspiration studying his voluminous cookbook collection, which comprises more than one thousand volumes including a favorite, Giuliano Bugiallis The Fine Art of Italian Cooking. He is a graduate of the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia. His eponymous restaurant, Leonti, opened in Manhattans Upper West Side in 2018.

KATIE PARLA, a New Jersey native, is a Rome-based food and beverage journalist, culinary guide, and educator. She is the author of the Saveur awardwinning food and travel site KatieParla.com, National Geographics Walking Rome, and the ebook Eating & Drinking in Rome. Katie has written or contributed to more than twenty-five books about Italy and Turkey. Her travel writing, recipes, and food criticism appear in the New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Guardian, Afar, Cond Nast Traveler, Punch, and Eater, and she is the coauthor of the IACP Awardwinning cookbook Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City. Her first solo title, Food of the Italian South, was published by Clarkson Potter in 2019.

RESOURCES

BOOKS ON BAKING, WHEAT, AND MILLING

Alderson, Erin. The Homemade Flour Cookbook: The Home Cooks Guide to Milling Nutritious Flours and Creating Delicious Recipes with Every Grain, Legume, Nut, and Seed from AZ. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2014.

Alterman, Tabitha. Whole Grain Baking Made Easy: Craft Delicious, Healthful Breads, Pastries, Desserts, and More. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2015.

Basey, Marleeta F. Flour Power: A Guide to Modern Home Grain Milling. Albany, OR: Jermar Press, 2004.

Bertolli, Paul. Cooking by Hand. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003.

Bobrow-Strain, Aaron. White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf. Boston: Beacon, 2012.

Calvel, Raymond. The Taste of Bread. Translated by Ronald L. Wirtz. New York: Springer, 2013. Originally published as Le got du pain (Les Lilas, France: ditions Jrme Villette, 1990).

Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Mariner Books, 2006.

Grant, Susan McKenna. Piano, Piano, Pieno: Authentic Food from a Tuscan Farm. New York: Overlook Press, 2006.

Halloran, Amy. The New Bread Basket: How the New Crop of Grain Growers, Plant Breeders, Millers, Maltsters, Bakers, Brewers, and Local Food Activists Are Redefining Our Daily Loaf. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2015.

Hamelman, Jeffrey. Bread: A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012.

Mallon, Shanna, and Tim Mallon. The Einkorn Cookbook: Discover the Worlds Purest and Most Ancient Form of Wheat. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2014.

Wing, Daniel, and Alan Scott. The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1999.

MILLS

KoMo Magic Grain Mill

pleasanthillgrain.com/shop-by/brand/komo_mills/

Meadows Mills

800-626-2282

meadowsmills.com

Mockmill

302-310-3230

wolfgangmock.com

MILLERS, WHEAT BERRY, AND FLOUR SOURCES

Anson Mills

803-467-4122

ansonmills.com

Founded to promote South Carolinas landrace rice varieties, Anson Mills now offers a range of stone-milled organic flours including Sonora wheat, Red Fife, einkorn, farro, and rye.

Barton Springs Mill

512-554-5981

bartonspringsmill.com

Barton Springs Mill stone-grinds sustainably grown whole grains near Austin, Texas.

Camas Country Mill

541-225-5640

camascountrymill.com

This Oregon-based mill and bakery stone-mills heritage grains, as well as Edison, which they created with the WSU Bread Lab.

Carolina Ground

carolinaground.com

This mill, based in North Carolina, sells wheat berries and stone-milled flours with a focus on hard and soft red winter wheat, as well as rye.

Castle Valley Mill

215-340-3609

castlevalleymill.com

Stone-milling spelt, farro, rye, and historic Pennsylvania grains in Bucks County.

Farmer Ground Flour

607-387-1007

farmergroundflour.com

This collaboration between millers Greg Russo and Neal Johnston and organic farmer Thor Oechsner provides locally cultivated grains from New Yorks Hudson Valley milled to order. Their flours are widely available in specialty shops across New York State and in select Whole Foods locations: rye, spelt, einkorn.

Grist & Toll

626-441-7400

gristandtoll.com

Milling hard red, Sonora, spelt, and rye in Pasadena, California.

Hayden Flour Mills

480-557-0031

haydenflourmills.com

Arizona-based Hayden Flour Mills sells flour made from local heritage grains like Sonora soft wheat.