Over Christmas holidays I stumbled upon this local farm‘s Instagram feed and quickly found myself devouring their website. After a bit of exploring I saw that they were holding a series of different workshops at the farm – the one that caught my eye? A day of learning about ancient grains, sourdough starter and baking bread. If you’ve been reading for a while you know about my love for bread and how through pregnancy I would wake up insanely early and bake. Well, that was just the beginning. Just like most things, when you start to get into them you only know so much. You use only the basic flours and think that kneading your dough for 10 minutes is long enough.

Little did I know.

When I arrived at Danielle’s farmhouse I felt as though I had finally walked into my dream world. Old wide wooden plank floors, a big open kitchen with an island in the middle, an old cast iron stove that she was stocking with freshly cut wood….and then the smells! Fresh bread, hot coffee and something deliciously sweet baking in the oven.

We started by learning about no knead rye bread ( which they had pre mixed the night before so we could lovingly learn about it but also take a loaf home! ) and then moved on to baking our very own honey cinnamon oat bread. We finished off by learning about the ancient grains, how to sprout them and how to create our own sourdough starter.

It was pretty magical to say the least.

As our bread was baking we all sat down to a beautiful big farmhouse table and shared cheese, freshly roasted garlic in olive oil, home made bread, soup and a delicious salad. There isn’t a lot more that I love more than sitting around a table eating delicious food.

What made it even more special was that it was just me. I haven’t done something like that in ages – an adventure just for myself. When I was thinking about buying a ticket, I realized it was something that I felt like I really needed. That sense of adventure and spontaneity. Not knowing a soul, driving to an area of Ontario I’d never been to – it was like this wild adventure that I was embarking on from the moment I woke up. I felt like I was traveling half way around the world and I was only driving two hours from home.

I woke up early on Saturday to find love notes strewn about the house – little words that made me feel like the most special human on earth. It was a totally selfish self love adventure and yet I was made to feel completely selfless. I couldn’t have asked for a better send off.

[ In all fairness I did return home with 2 delicious loaves of bread so it wasn’t completely selfish!]

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baking / freshly baked no knead rye bread

drinking / home made almond milk ( I use the recipe out of this cookbook )

choosing / to keep the distance I created when I took a brief breather from social media in February

mastering / the art of doing one thing at a time – something I am pretty terrible at

reminding / myself to be present – it’s all happening n o w, not yesterday and not in a year from now

listening to / old mixed CD’s I found at my parents house, this is my favorite track right now

finishing / packing the h o u s e

reading / Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

exploring / Eastern Ontario

wearing / boyfriend jeans and cashmere sweaters

eating / baked trout sandwiches with kimchi, sautéed greens and sharp cheddar

working / on writing a few exciting articles for different health / wellness blogs + websites

wishing / I had a forest out back of my house so I could wake up make hot cup of tea and go explore in the wild

watching / Wish I was here by Zac Braff + Master of None by Aziz Ansari

craving / sprouted flour pancakes after that ancient grain workshop!

feeling / lucky lucky lucky that I get to be this smiley buddah’s mama

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