About Us

Here's a little about us and where we've been!

In 1995 I fled Manhattan with my then wife and our meager possessions and moved to the outer boroughs. We got ourselves a dog, named her Scout, took long walks and in no time I was bit by a tick and got lymes disease.

Faced with an intense course of antibiotics I got very interested in my diet. I discovered Weston Price (http://www.westonaprice.org/) and the one thing he strongly advocated for was sprouted grain breads and it made sense. For a lot of reasons. If I was going to eat bread, it had to be sprouted.

But finding good, sprouted grain recipes was hopeless. So I decided I would develop my own. I got discouraged. Gave up. But came back. Tried again. Gave up. Tried again. This went on for years.

Then one day after endless trial and error and massive notes it all came together. It worked. Really and truly. My sprouted whole-grain bread tasted great, looked incredible and subsequent batches were just as good. Meanwhile, I moved to small-town Pennsylvania with a thriving farmer’s market. I walked up one day with a cart and thirty loaves. Sold them all and two years later moved into a commercially-sized kitchen, partnered up with Michael Perakovich and now we bake the best sprouted whole-grain bread and flax-granola in the world, or at least the world as we know it.

I can't really stop there. Michael's addition has been huge. He took my bread recipe that I developed over several years and said, this is good but we can do better. And he has. Michael's insistence that we develop a loaf of bread unlike any other has meant completely eliminating all flour - even our own milled sprouted grain flour - then eliminating all commercial yeast in favor of natural leavens. This process of reinventing our starter and our basic recipe has not been easy and Michael toiled in frustration for several months. I would stop him from time to time and suggest we go back to using commercial yeast or adding gluten or other dough enhancers to the bread but Michael just shook his head and said, have faith. He continued to nurse various starters in various states under various conditions until he nailed it. Now we make the bread without flour, without added gluten, without commercial yeast. And, we're both committed to finding and sprouting first quality heritage and ancient grains - preferably grown in our area. Historically heavy rains have hampered growers around here but that won't last forever so, please stay tuned as we mean to make a great loaf of bread even better.

Doug