We are about to have ourselves a bit of a heat scorcher the next few days, aren't we? I'm looking forward to finishing off all the baking this afternoon and enjoying a cold one down at the market with all of you. Our friends at Prairie St. Brewing Co. brewed up some cream ale earlier this week, so that means we will be bringing our Baker & Brewer spent grain sourdough loaves to all three locations this weekend. Compared to last week though, the sunshine feels most welcome despite the temperatures it may bring ... thanks to everyone for visiting C&C on opening weekend!
Another one making a comeback this round is our Jalapeño Cheddar bread. This season we changed up our formula for this crowd-pleaser to include even more cheese than it had before. The cheddar was also shredded into the dough rather than left in big chunks so that cheesy goodness can be better dispersed into every bite. Not going to lie...now that we are up in Wisconsin on Saturdays, we have to really bring our A-game in the cheese department 😉
Besides the two mentioned above, we will also have Organic Country White, Olive Oil Semolina, Cranberry Walnut, and some Oat Porridge loaves on the menu.
Here are all the locations where you can find us: Rockford City Market on Fridays from 3:30 - 8:30 pm; at North End City Market on Saturdays from 9:00 - 1:00 pm; and at Downtown Beloit Farmer's Market on Saturdays from 8:00 - 1:00 pm.
Summer Is Officially Here 🙌
The opening day of Rockford City Market always marks the beginning of summer for us here at C&C. This week has been full of hustle and bustle around the kitchen in preparation for this weekend...the whole team finally reunited after an off-season break and we are so excited to see you all!
We are going to be at three different markets this weekend - at Rockford City Market today from 3:30 - 8:30 pm; at North End City Market tomorrow from 9:00 - 1:00 pm; and at Downtown Beloit Farmer's Market tomorrow from 8:00 - 1:00 pm. At both of the Rockford markets, our booth will be located in the same place as previous years. If you come to visit us in Beloit, we can be found in the parking lot area next to Bushel & Peck's.
On the menu we will have Organic Country White, Seeded Whole Wheat, Olive Oil Semolina, Cranberry Walnut, and Oat Porridge loaves as well as some French Baguettes (at Saturday markets only). There's some other news I'd love to share but we've got tons of bread to wrap up before we hit the road and so I will update you all in the next newsletter!
A Year In Review 🌱
Traditionally, year-in-review features look backwards to highlight the ups and downs of the past year. But for our first newsletter of 2018, I decided that I want to look forward instead...to share a glimpse into the plans that will drive our focus here at C&C and what we will aspire to accomplish in the coming months.
As some of you may know, I've been slowly inching through grad school over the last few years. In early May, I will finally get to graduate! While the thought of opening an artisan bakery didn't cross my mind when I first started school, that's all I'm thinking about as I'm getting ready to finish. Years ago when I applied to the market to be a vendor, it was simply because I wanted a job for myself. But one of the main things I've learned in business school is that the role of entrepreneurship lies really in creating jobs for other people and creating value for your community. I take that lesson to heart as we continue establishing the foundations of this dream venture.
In order to provide opportunity for fellow bakers and make a place where bread lovers can gather, C&C needed the right space where we can grow and flourish as a business. I'm so thrilled to say that the search for a perfect brick & mortar location is over and we'll be opening our first retail bakery cafe at the new indoor Rockford City Market on Madison Street in early 2019! We will be pouring all our creative energy into this project over the next nine months as we get ready for the big move. I'm looking forward to sharing updates on the construction and development of our new space with you along the way.
There are only a couple of months left till the beginning of farmer's market season. Friday, May 18th, is the opening day for the downtown City Market and on the following morning, we'll start at North End City Market as well as at the Downtown Beloit Farmer's Market. We'll continue with our CSB (community supported bakery) program through the summer because I realize not everyone can come down to our booth on the weekends. The April-June rotation is starting soon and the deadline to sign up for a bread share is March 31st if you'd like to get a new membership or renew your existing one. I will also be posting a new schedule of baking classes shortly.
Lastly, I want to finish off by saying how thankful I am to all of you reading...we are a small operation, other than posting picture updates to our social media platforms and sending out these newsletters, we don't engage in traditional paid advertising or anything. Yet word has gotten out organically because of you...folks from all over Rockford, surrounding communities, Chicago, Madison, and as far as Milwaukee are seeking us out to try our bread and driving in to take classes. It's astonishing and it pushes me to be more loud & proud about the things we are doing because of your confidence in us. So I got over my shyness and got in front of the camera. Here's a video that has been released today by Our City, Our Story...I'm so very honored to be included in this series and grateful to Pablo Korona who believed that my story was worth telling.
When Jojo G. needed a job, she took a chance to call the Rockford City Market to pitch a booth. She bluffed her way into a path that has now become her career. See how this passionate mother and entrepreneur has become a model for what happens when you create opportunity.
🎉 Goodbye, 2017 🎉
As we bid farewell to 2017, I wanted to send out a friendly reminder that we will be wrapping up registration for our Winter/Spring CSB rotation in the next couple of days. If you haven't signed up or renewed your membership, please do so by this Sunday. The first bread share distribution will be on the following Wednesday, January 3rd.
Our holiday special of $20 off all bread baking classes will also be expiring on the 31st. Our January class is all sold out but we still have a few spots left in our February and March classes for those who have been interested in learning how to make sourdough bread at home. I'm so excited to share with everyone our passion for this craft and feel honored that folks are coming from near and far to bake with us at C&C.
I wish you all a safe, splendid New Year's Eve and a glorious year ahead!
Happy Holidays!
Tonight we will have our last big bake of 2017 before we take some time off to spend the holidays at home with our families. This past week as I looked around the space where we create, my heart filled with joy and gratitude just thinking of all that has been accomplished this year and of all the people that have played a part in that. This whole endeavor is so new to us at C&C - every day we are learning new lessons as we go and just trying to do our very best.
I'm anxious to see what 2018 has in store for us. There are lots of exciting things on the horizon...from starting to offer bread baking classes at our kitchen, growing our community supported bakery program, joining new markets, to partnering with more local businesses so we can better serve our customers and continue to share the goodness that is freshly baked bread with more folks. I want to thank you all for joining and supporting us on this journey...we are so proud to be a part of this awesome community!
As always...my wish for you and yours this holiday season is peace, love, and prosperity.
Cheers!
Hello, D E C E M B E R ❄
I probably wrote about this last December but this time of year is my favorite...I get to enjoy my birthday, Christmas, and New Year's celebrations all in one month. But along with this excitement, it also seems to be the month that goes by way too quickly. There's many things to wrap up, other than presents of course, and much to plan for in preparation of the coming year. When I started thinking about my resolution for 2018, what comes to mind first is "community" - the community of people that we are fortunate enough to be able to nourish, nurture, and grow with as all of us center around the love for good bread.
Over the last four weeks, we had the utmost pleasure of baking with some of our CSB members as we hosted two different groups for a sourdough class at C&C. It was so much fun just getting to know everybody and spending time together. We even discovered that our oven bakes up pretty darned good pizza too! I think I learned just as much as I'd hoped to teach during these sessions...and after all the requests for other classes have come through, I've found that our community is as passionate to learn the craft as we are open to sharing our knowledge of it. We have now posted a schedule of classes that you can sign up for on our website and we'll post new dates as every 3-month bread share rotation begins.
Speaking of our Community Supported Bakery program, we have been working on creating a better experience overall from introducing an SMS pick-up reminder service to building member corners on our website [pictured above]. You can now easily access the pick-up schedule for all share levels as well as view a gallery of breads that have been baked throughout the rotation by going to the CSB tab on the site navigation. The first rotation of 2018 is set to begin on January 3rd and the full schedule is listed in the Winter/Spring Member Corner page. The last bread share delivery for 2017 is a couple of weeks away and the deadline to sign up for the next round is December 29th.
We are also now accepting pre-orders for holiday miches through December 18th. You will be able to pick up your bread on the Thursday, Friday, or Saturday before Christmas Eve at Artale & Co. We didn't get to do any of this last year so I'm happy that we are in the position now to hopefully be a part of your holiday season!
A Thanksgiving Message ❤
Back when Rockford City Market first started, I was just a new graduate desperately seeking my perfect job...and by perfect, I mean any job. Long story short, the odds were definitely not working in my favor and so I stumbled my way into learning the bread-baking craft in order to become a vendor at the market. "Just for the summer", I thought. By the time winter had rolled around, I finally found myself at the doorstep of Barbara Olson Center of Hope, a not-for-profit organization that serves people with developmental disabilities, ready to begin the first real job in my chosen career. I have been there for 7 years now. And though my pursuit of Crust & Crumbles has taken me more and more away from the Center, this place is so near and dear to my heart.
I bring this up today because Thanksgiving is a time for gathering and gratitude...and a true Thanksgiving is also in actually doing that - giving. For many years, I helped with running the Center's annual #GivingTuesday campaign, a day dedicated to inspiring people to help their local community and give back to the causes they support. And throughout those years, I have been witness to the incredible generosity of our friends and neighbors. Having been on the other side of the fence, I can also tell you that every gift goes towards serving and championing for those that are the most vulnerable among us. Not only that, all the nonprofits in our city together employ a great amount of people within this community through their operations...people that are making a difference in someone's life every day.
Any online contribution made to the Barbara Olson Center of Hope on Tuesday, November 28th will receive a matching donation from the Coleman Foundation in Chicago. I hope you kindly consider making a gift to the Center...and if not, please reach out to the organizations and charities you care about this holiday season because as the saying goes, "We rise by lifting others."
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Thanksgiving Bread
Last night I attended the Beaujolais Nouveau Party hosted by our dear friends at Five Forks Market. This is the second year we have baked all the bread for this event to accompany bottomless bowls of a special peasant stew being served (SOOO good!) as bottles of this year's wine were being uncorked at everyone's table. Beaujolais Nouveau, originating in France, is celebrated annually on the third Thursday of November as a time to commemorate the end of the harvest; to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all that labor alongside friends and family.
Next Thursday we will be celebrating the end of harvest ourselves and giving thanks for all that is good. I have much to be thankful for this year...the health and happiness of my family, the company of good friends, the purpose and productivity of my C&C team, and the community of people that propel this dream venture forward by sharing in our love of good bread.
Next week we will be helping friends of C&C give thanks of their own by baking miche /meesh/ loaves to be gifted forward. It is the classic French bread rooted in history and tradition that is centuries old. In villages across France, when the baker fired up the communal oven, all the townsfolk brought their dough to him/her for baking and the resulting miches weighed anywhere between 4 and 12 pounds. These large loaves kept their moisture better and would be enough to feed the families for days or weeks until the next baking day.
We were originally planning to start accepting holiday miche orders just for Christmastime but we are able to bake a limited amount of these loaves alongside our bulk orders if you'd like one for your Thanksgiving table next week. You will be able to pick up your order Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday at Artale & Co. If you are a CSB member, just send me a note and we will be able to deliver the miche to whichever location you normally pick up your bread on Wednesday. Here is the link to our online shop where you can place your order from now until noon Sunday - http://www.crustncrumbles.com/shop/
Goodbye, O C T O B E R ☔
Tonight we will begin our prep work for the last market day of 2017...time flies when you're having fun and I've gotta say I'm feeling a little caught off guard that November is already here. We will be at both the North End City Market and the Downtown Beloit Farmer's Market this coming Saturday morning. So whether you are in town or decide to take a little drive, I invite you to come visit and close out the season with us. There will be a Halloween costume parade and party in Beloit, so we will have some treats at our booth for the kids. We are also planning for something fun at our North End booth as well.
We have been enjoying baking for our CSB members and truly appreciate all the feedback we have been getting through the last month. Past Wednesday was the distribution of our first experimental loaf - a mushroom sourdough bread encrusted in sesame seeds with shiitakes and porcinis inside [pictured above]. Our membership is growing and we are excited to be welcoming new breadheads here in a couple of weeks as well as to the Winter/Spring rotation. If you'd like to join in, the deadline to sign up for NOV shares is Friday, November 4th on our website.
Two weeks ago we started up the #ToastTuesday collaboration with our friends at Octane downtown. It's an all day feature on the menu every Tuesday and so far they've come up with some awesome flavors to pair our bread with. I sneaked in there for lunch this week and had roasted apples & pears topped with brie cheese, Eickman's bacon, and cherry compote on the Country White. If you haven't had a chance, I hope you will stop by one of these days and check it out.
Anyway, I'd like to finish this post by saying thank you so much for your support and patronage throughout the 2017 market season. It means the world to all of us here at C&C and we wouldn't be able to do what we love without you.
Modernist Bread
Most people that have gotten to know me as a baker don't really know that all my educational background is in science and that I didn't get to this point via culinary school. I went through my undergrad majoring in biology/chemistry and then continued my schooling to go into the healthcare field. When I first delved into opening this bakery, I'd often thought, "gosh, I can't believe I went through all those years and racked up those college bills to now end up doing something completely unrelated!" But more and more it's becoming evident that baking bread is ultimately an exercise in science.
Last night I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture and Q&A discussion in Chicago with Francisco Migoya, co-author of Modernist Bread, as well as get a sneak peek of the real thing before its Nov 7th release date. This five volume set of 2642 pages and weighing in at over 50 lbs is the culmination of four years of research by the folks at The Cooking Lab founded by Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft. An interdisciplinary team of historians, baking industry greats, and scientists including chemists, microbiologists, as well as physicists joined forces to assemble these groundbreaking, in-depth reference tomes on the subject matter. I'm so excited for this collection to join our resource library to help the C&C team continue in honing the craft and producing the best bread we can for all of you.
This week also marked the end for our short term CSB members...we wanted to give a proper send-off by baking one of our favorites, the Black Sage, for Wednesday's distribution. If you have been thinking of trying out Blind Date with a Baker, this is a good time to sign up for November shares. We have also made it possible on our website to sign up for the Winter/Spring rotation for those of you would like to secure a more long-term share. If your favorite market loaf has not yet made an appearance in your CSB bag, we will be at North End market tomorrow morning with Country White, Olive Oil Semolina, and Seven Seed Whole Wheat sourdoughs.