From the kitchen.
Stories, sourdough science, and recipes from Jan's monthly Bread Letter — collected here so you can pull up a chair anytime.
Real bread, real benefits: what sourdough actually does for your body.
A surprising number of you have told Jan that sourdough sits differently — that you feel fuller, better, more settled. You're not imagining it. From glycemic response to resistant starch, here's the real biology inside a slow-fermented loaf.
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Slow-roasted pork on a sourdough sesame bun, drowned in a sweet-smoky sauce made the day before. The Fourth of July done right.
That bubbly jar on the counter is alive — a direct descendant of how all bread was made. Jan explains her "kitchen pet," and how to wake yours up.
The birthday dessert Jan never stopped thinking about — with a starter-discard twist that changes the texture in the best way.
Bread still warm from the oven, food that traveled miles instead of states, and neighbors who become friends. Why the market matters.
Assemble it the night before, bake it in the morning, and spend breakfast at the table instead of the stove. Made for slow mornings.
A loaf baked here tastes different than one baked anywhere else — the land, the air, and the flour all leave their mark. Here's why.
A market-season celebration — plus Jan's trick for using nearly the whole asparagus spear (peel, don't snap).
"I don't eat carbs anymore." Jan hears it every week at market — and the real conversation isn't carbs or no carbs. It's quality.
Winter comfort meets the hope of spring arugula — with sourdough roasted right under the bird, soaking up everything good.
Fridge, board, or freezer — none of them are wrong. Plus the 10-minute oven trick that brings any loaf back to life.
Half a dozen edible red roses from puff pastry and two apples. A Valentine treat for someone you love — including yourself.
Three days, a wild levain, and a blazing-hot stone oven. Jan walks through exactly how every Crow Bench loaf is made.
A meal in itself and so, so cozy. Patient caramelized onions, good broth, and sourdough croutons under bubbling Gruyère.
Fast bread ferments inside you. Real sourdough does that work before it ever reaches your plate — here's the whole beautiful story.
Sourdough focaccia meets sticky bun. The dough works overnight in the fridge so the holiday morning is mostly melted butter and dimples.
The one that started it all. What's actually going on inside that bubbling jar — and why every bake is a collaboration with a few trillion invisible helpers.
Double-smoked bacon, garden herbs, cranberries, and a stale sourdough loaf doing what it was born to do. Crispy edges are not optional.
Life at Crow Bench Farm, one season at a time.
Pulled from the pages of The Bread Letter — the storms, the sunsets, and everything that came out of the oven along the way.
Bread and fireworks.
The Fourth of July markets bring sesame buns and full streets. Jan heads off to train alongside bakers from around the world, and the lineup settles into the classics the valley keeps coming back for.
The busiest stand yet.
Burger buns make their market debut and disappear fast. The garden blooms, the grandkids get a visit, and a birthday clafoutis becomes a recipe worth passing on.
Back to the booth.
Moscow on Saturdays, Orofino on Thursdays. Sandwich loaves and English muffins join the boules, with a small surprise most weeks — and word gets out that an online course is filming.
The bakery gets a spruce-up.
Fresh paint, newly oiled butcher block, ovens fired back to life. The flickers are gently evicted from the cedar siding — birds belong in the trees, not the walls — and the elk herd looks especially healthy.
The storm gives something back.
Trees lost in the December storm come home as lumber, ready to rebuild the raised garden beds — just like the first beds, built from this land's own wood over a decade ago. The clearer bench reveals sunsets no one knew were there.
The Bread Box opens in Orofino.
A little bread outpost at 330 B Street — six blocks off Highway 12 — so neighbors can pick up loaves on their own schedule, even when the markets sleep.
The December storm.
Nearly twenty-five trees came down across the farm in a single night. The house was spared — every trunk fell as if placed by a careful hand — and a good crew made the ground safe again.
A pilgrimage and a half-baked idea.
A bakery road trip through the Skagit Valley sparks new grain experiments, and Half-Baked loaves — finished in your own oven — join the winter lineup along with holiday bread drops in Moscow.
The Bread Letter begins.
Garlic in the ground, preserves on the pantry shelves, and the first issue of a monthly note from the farmhouse table — the start of everything you're reading on this page.