Farm & Sparrow Bread
ASHEVILLE ARTISAN
BREAD FESTIVAL 2013
Saturday, MARCH 23
Workshops – 10 to 6; Bread Tasting & Sale – 10 to 2
Held on AB TECH CAMPUS
Mark your calendar. The Asheville Artisan Bread Festival, organized by baker Steve Bardwell, is in its ninth year and well worth attending. The atmosphere is charged with the enthusiasm of local bakers & bread lovers; its hard not to be caught up in the fervor!
According to Peter Reinhart:
“Asheville and its surrounding area, with a very small population, supports more artisan bakeries than most states. The bakeries are all small, but truly artisan in the purest sense of the word.”
Attend the Bread Tasting & Sale:
Held from 10 – 2 at the Magnolia Building on the A-B Tech campus in Asheville, NC ~ this is your chance to sample and compare the breads from many regional bakers. If you buy a loaf of bread before they run out of tickets, you might get a free ticket to attend one of the baking classes.
Attend the Hands-on Workshops & Lectures:
Held from 10-6 at the Magnolia Building on the A-B Tech campus in Asheville, NC.
For bread-enthusiasts who want to improve their baking skills, there will be many workshops and lectures at A-B Tech taught by Craig Ponsford, Peter Reinhart, Lionel Vatinet, Emily Buelher, Eduard Thijs, and Jennifer Lapidus. There is also an off-campus opportunity to explore wood-fired baking with Bob Bowles. All the classes sound enticing. I am signed up for the pastry-making class and the gluten-free baking class. Tickets are required for all the workshops.
Thinking of taking a bread class? Plan ahead because space is limited and classes fill up quickly…in fact many are already sold out – so sign up right away. Check out the class schedule here.
About some of the Instructors:
Craig Ponsford graduated from the California Culinary Academy with top honors and opened Artisan Bakers with his family in Sonoma California in 1992. In 1996 his breads won the Gold medal at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris. He then went on to coach the US Team to victory in 1999. He has coached each U.S. team since and served as U.S. judge at the 2002 and 2005 Coupe du Monde and 2007 Louis LeSaffe Cup held in Argentina. Currently, he is an instructor at the Culinary Institute of American in St. Helena, California and has his own bakery/innovation center, Ponsford’s Place, in his home town of San Rafael.
Peter Reinhart, currently chef-on-assignment at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, is the author of eight bread cook books, three of which have won the James Beard Award. He is a widely respected teacher, author, and consultant. For a more complete listing of Peter’s accomplishments, see
http://www.co.lincoln.nc.us/DocumentCenter/Home/View/1368
.
Lionel Vatinet, a French master baker, teacher, baking consultant, author, and owner of La Farm Bakery in Cary, NC is one of America’s most respected experts on artisan bread. He has dedicated his life to sharing his knowledge, consulting nationwide and abroad for bakeries, training bakers in Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America, Canada and the United States. In 1995, Vatinet was the founding instructor at the San Francisco Baking Institute, the first school of its kind in the US. Bakers from the most respected bakeries in America – La Brea, Acme, Zabar’s and Panera – traveled to SFBI to study with Vatinet.
For more information contact Steve Bardwell at 828-683-2902 or wakerobinfarmbreads@main.nc.us. http://www.ashevillebreadfestival.com.
