I honestly can’t even believe that it’s 2017 but calendars don’t lie! Actually, I’ve never bothered to ask them any questions other than what day it is, or when I have something scheduled. Even in those circumstances calendars don’t answer, they leave me to do all of the research. So, I guess if they can answer and they also don’t lie, then they’re mischievous sprites who get joy out other people’s strife. Perhaps I’ve just convinced myself to hate calendars! Well, that was an unintended result of this blogpost.

Either way, what I wanted to mention is that with the changing of the year, we’re also looking to make some changes here at the bakery. We’ve been working on increasing our online presence to make it easier for people to find us. After 6 years of operating out of the same location we’re still finding a lot of people who have never heard of us, or who have just found out about us but can’t find our physical location. If most of these people were tourists from out of state then it would make sense. But no! Most of them are not only local, but also within a few miles of us. Disappointing for sure! Hopefully, the things we’re working on this year will help improve people’s awareness about us.

One of the things I’m most interested in is our updated menu. Some prices have changed, of course, as the cost of raw goods has increased, including an almost 50% increase in the cost of vanilla, as strange as that sounds. I’ve been wanting to run a menu that more accurately reflects what is available locally, but that has been too difficult to start the last couple of years. We are going to give it a go this year. Fingers crossed that it works! Every week our menu will change a little. Check us out online for our updated bakery menu to see what we have available for that week. New menus should be out as of Tuesday of that week as Sundays and Mondays we’re closed. That schedule will not be changing. We are still open to the public between 7am and 4pm Tuesday thru Saturday, and our deli, which only has minimal changes to its menu, will be open on those same days 8am to 3pm.

We’ll be debuting a new bread we’ve been working on. It’s called Woodburn Wheat. We use toasted Sorghum, Millet, and Quinoa seeds with two heritage wheat flours. They are called heritage because the grain is grown by a local farmer who uses organic practices (but is not certified organic) to grow these seeds that were originally harvested in the late 1800s to early 1900s. One of the grains is a wheat called Foisy, named after the farmer who first discovered the wheat varietal on his farm in Woodburn, Oregon, yep, you guessed it, in the late 1800s. All in all, the bread kind of eats like a soft Triscuit. It’s really exciting to work with a farmer who is so enthusiastic about his product! I really hope you get a chance to try this bread and I really hope you enjoy it when you do! Since the wheat is an original harvest and is also a key contributor to the flavor and texture of the bread, it should come as no surprise that this whole-wheat bread is not available wheat-free. Nevertheless, I just thought that needed to be said.

I hope you had a great holiday season including a raucous, or calm, whatever you prefer, New Year! Good riddance to 2016 and hello 2017 – we expect you to be better than last year!