We are on the menu at BVSD today!!!
A couple of years ago we planted a couple of acres of wheat on a friend's farm nearby. It took a lot of work, trial and error on some old equipment, persistence and innovation. In the end we put in a couple hundred pounds Turkey Red wheat seed just before winter was beating down the door.
All winter and spring I watched that wheat grow and wondered how the heck I'd harvest it. See, I don't own a combine (although I've come close) and harvesting 2 acres with a scythe is a legit endeavor. As spring turned to summer and the wheat dried down in the field and begged to be cut, I still wondered how the heck I'd harvest it. That is until Eric Skokan from Black Cat Farm offered a hand with his combine. We met Eric at his farm one morning up in Boulder and drove our truck as a pilot vehicle complete with a spinning orange light and my kids standing through my pick up truck sun roof with him trailing in the combine on dirt roads 12 miles per hour for one and a half hours until we finally arrived at our little wheat patch. Eric threw me the keys to the combine, gave a two minute tutorial and said "cut wheat my friend". It took all of 20 minutes to give that field a shave and then we were on our way back to Eric's farm. We pulled into Black Cat late in the afternoon and started away at cleaning the wheat on his old Clipper seed cleaner. Covered in dust and wheat chaff Eric cracked a smile and said "I wonder if you'd ever think about planting wheat a little closer to me" chiding me for that long haul for only 2 acres of wheat in the end (actually that first year we harvested more alfalfa than wheat). The following fall I got a call one morning from Eric: " I've got your field prepared, bring up some wheat and we'll plant today". Eric had prepared the loveliest 2 acre plot on his farm for me to sew wheat in next to his grazing sheep and farm stand on Jay Road. Our wheat flourished on those 2 acres and we harvested a bumper crop that following summer.
Last month while dreaming up possibilities for local grain and food systems with Stephen Menyhart at the Boulder Valley School District Culinary Center, we came up with the idea to promote our Colorado Grain Chain through putting some of this special wheat to use in a new dessert for the kids. It's a cheery Strawberry Crisp with Moxie &Black Cat local wheat topping.
If you children are at any of the 50 + schools in the Boulder Valley, today they will be enjoying this for dessert!
Thanks to Stephen, BVSD and The Skokan's for making this possible. We are looking forward to featuring another local Colorado wheat grower next month with Sarah and Michael Jones of Jones Farms in the San Luis Valley. Their organic potatoes are prized farm and near and also on the BVSD menu already, but we can't wait to showcase their wheat as well.
Here's our hometown boy on SNL singing his heart out with his amazing band.