Each month, excepting July and August, we hold fabulous cooking classes at our Whole Grain Store in Milwaukie, Oregon. I know this is only truly relevant to those of you who live nearby, but they are really definitely worth checking out if you are in the Portland area and looking for something to do. We get some top notch instructors and cover some really neat topics on everything from basic gluten free baking to ethnic cuisines (Lebanese, Italian, Ethiopian… to name a few) to artisanal breads. Some classes are more informational (with tasting of course!) and some are more hands-on.

Here are the classes for September. Check ‘em out and if you’d like to sign up, call 800-553-2258 x 208.

End-of-Summer Harvest with Amelia Hard!
Thursday, September 8, 2011 5:00-7:00 p.m. 

Celebrate Oregon’s end-of-summer harvest with popular chef Amelia Hard. She’ll show you how to prepare six delicious dishes using fresh ingredients from your garden or your favorite farmers market: Salmorejo (a rich ripe tomato gazpacho), sweet and crunchy Grated Raw Beet and Carrot Salad with citrus vinaigrette, crisp homemade Olive Oil Crackers, Rustic Crêpes (made with spelt and garbanzo flour) filled with sautéed seasonal vegetables, Wheat Berry Salad (flavored with cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, almonds, and shallot vinaigrette), and a luscious Brown Butter Almond Cake topped with caramelized fruit.

Note: All the dishes in this menu are vegetarian. There will be variations included in the recipes for the crêpes and the wheat berry salad for those who prefer to add meat.

Supplies to Bring: enjoy the sampling!       Class fee $40.00

The Wonders of Millet with Dan Brophy!  Thursday, September 15, 2011 5:00-7:00 p.m. September is our month to focus on Millet and boy do we have a fabulous menu for you!  Chef Dan Brophy is back to share his culinary expertise on how easy this grain is to prepare. Although millet is most often associated as the main ingredient in bird seed, it is not just “for the birds.” It was millet, rather than rice, that played an important part of the prehistoric diets in Indian and Chinese societies.  Chef Brophy’s menu will include: Millet Tabbouleh, Millet and Black Bean Salad, Millet Pilaf with Saffron and Lemon, Millet Flat Bread, Millet Crackers, Millet and Yellow Split Peas

Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the delicious ways to enjoy the whole grain goodness of millet!

Supplies to Bring: enjoy the sampling!       Class fee $40.00

Alright, without further ado:

The finalists who will compete in Bob’s Red Mill’s Ultimate Oatmeal Throwdown are:

• Merry Graham from Newhall, California Black Bean Porridge Patties
• Rachel Kimbrow from Portland, Oregon Gingerbread Oatmeal
• Jim Schafer from Kohler, Wisconsin Nutty Coconut Oatmeal

The three finalists were chosen from the nearly 50 home cooks and professional chefs who submitted video recipes that featured Steel Cut Oats. I know the judges had a very hard time making a decision and spent a few hours watching the videos over and over again looking for just the right dish and the right personality. And no, I was (thankfully) not one of the judges. You guys know me- I would have flown out all 50 entrants and met them all face to face… then where would we be?

Now, the finalists will be flown to Portland where they will compete in a live cook-off on Friday, August 26. The finalists will prepare their recipes from scratch in front of an audience at Bob’s Red Mill’s Whole Grain Store. The grand-prize winner will be selected by a panel of celebrity judges (we’ll tell you who soon) and will travel to Scotland to compete in the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship.

So how did the judges select the winners? I know some folks will be wondering why the video with the most votes didn’t win. This is what I have heard from the judges themselves.

A variety of criteria was used to select the finalists, including site visitors’ votes, use of Steel Cut Oats as a featured ingredient, ability to appeal to the Scottish judges’ taste-palates and whether the recipes could be prepared in the competition’s allotted 30-minute time frame. On top of that, they took into account how the person handled themselves. It’s a lot of pressure to be under during the Golden Spurtle- you have cameras and microphones in your face during your 30 minutes.

Congratulations to the finalists! I cannot wait to see these dishes being created! We will be working to get all of the recipes from all of the videos on our website soon, there are so many delicious uses for steel cut oats (again, see why I’m not a judge??)!  In the meantime, check out the winning videos and the rest of the great entries at www.sparforthespurtle.com.

I will also be posting more info about the Portland cook-off in the next few days so you can come out, if you’re around and watch the fun for yourself.

Cheers!

For the last two years, Bob’s Red Mill has released a desk calendar. We send it out to some of our friends and business partners as part of our holiday greeting in December. We don’t print very many and it’s likely you’ve never seen one. The last two years we featured great artwork and photography of our products and facility. This year we are doing something totally different and a bit more fun, if you ask me. We’re featuring our employees doing what they love. This is includes all sorts of things, after all, we’re a pretty eclectic group.  You’ll see folks doing what makes them passionate, everything from playing a round of golf to swing dancing!

We all know that Bob is passionate about stone milling, but he’s also very passionate about his other loves- his beautiful wife Charlee and his two Model-A Fords (Gertie and Clara). Here are some shots from his photo shoot last week.

Julie from Marketing helps stage the table for a realistic picnic.

Charlee and Bob are all smiles for the camera. You can see Gertie peaking out from behind them. She is Bob's convertable Model-A.

Aren't they something special? Still in love after 60 years!

Tuesday, February 15th, marked the one-year anniversary of Bob’s announcement that he was handing ownership of Bob’s Red Mill to his employees. When the announcement was made, we had no idea how inspiring people would find this. Obviously, the employees were blown away by the announcement, but the rest of the country seemed to follow suit, as if they, too, had received a piece of Bob’s Red Mill.

After a year of reflection and still quite a lot of interest from the media and our customers, I feel privileged to work at Bob’s Red Mill and so lucky to call these people my family. This story is more unique than most of us realized at the time. There are only about 1100 employee-owned companies in our country. This is truly the exception of how to do business, where the rule seems to be “sell the company and move on.”

A question I get at every event I attend is “Who runs the company now?” That’s easy, Bob! Of course he still runs the company and we wouldn’t want it any other way. Truly, it’s a team effort that involves everyone in this company, but Bob is still the thriving ring-leader of this whole grain circus. We now have a team of stakeholders who help steer decisions that affect our company, but the day-to-day aspects of our company haven’t changed a bit. Our stakeholders are just as vested in the success and quality of our brand as the rest of us and have no intention of changing the way we do business.

If anything has changed, it’s the incredible pride each employee takes in their job. Knowing how seriously people take their jobs here, I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m certain that everyone is working harder than ever to do their best. I’ve never worked somewhere that people loved so much. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you with a beaming smile why they love their job here. It’s an incredible place to call home and I can’t wait to see where the future takes us.

Thank you for making this possible. Bob wouldn’t have had anything to save or pass on to us, if not for you. Each time you buy a product, you cast a vote that affects the world. Thank you for voting for us and a world where whole grains and health take priority.

Thank you from all of us at Bob's Red Mill

Bob’s Red Mill has been nominated in four categories for the Best of Gluten Free Awards run by Triumph Dining. We’ve been nominated in these categories: Best Gluten-Free Cake Mixes, Best Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix, Best Gluten-Free Hot Cereal (Gluten Free Mighty Tasty Cereal), and Best Gluten-Free Pancake (& Waffle) Mix.

It is quite an honor to be nominated and we would be thrilled to win an award. There are a lot of great companies nominated in 42 different categories, so even if you don’t think we’re the best in all of four of the categories we were nominated in, you should still head over and cast your vote at http://www.triumphdining.com/blog/best-of-gluten-free/

The survey is up until January 14th, 2011.

In case you’re not familiar with Triumph Dining, they’re the folks who put out the lovely Gluten Free Restaurant and Grocery Guides each year. These guides help people following the gluten free diet find restaurants in their area with gluten free choices and safe products in the supermarket. Both of these guides would be an excellent gift for a person who has been recently diagnosed with celiac disease or put on a gluten free diet.

One of the things that is a real benefit of working with suppliers that operate nearby, is that learning more about what you are purchasing is just a short ride away. Today we headed out to Hillsboro, Oregon to take a tour of International Paper and watch some of our beautiful full color case boxes being printed. Keeping up with the growing demand for whole grains keeps us busy around the clock. It’s great to have a few good business nearby that can keep up with our packaging needs to help us get the products you want on store shelves.

We wanted to share with you some of our photos from the tour so that you can get a feel for how our emphasis on minimal packaging really adds up. When you consider that most products on the supermarket store shelves come packaged in an individual box, it’s easy to understand that doing something as simple as putting four bags in just one case box for shipping can make a real impact over time.

Because of the scale of the printing, much attention is paid to the pre-press process to eliminate any waste.

It is difficult to capture the enormous size of the press that prints our boxes, because it larger than most houses.

Preparing the rolles for printing.

Cameras monitor for any shifting during the printing process to catch errors before they become bigger problems.

Checking for printing errors under normal light.

Checking for printing flaws under a blacklight reveals any flaws that might be invisible under normal conditions.

These labels were zooming past!

A finished roll ready to be moved into the warehouse.

Cassidy poses with a finished roll.

Matt proudly holds the Golden Spurtle in preparation for the competition.

The day of the competition was a beautiful, sunny fall day in the small village of Carrbridge, Scotland. The air was crisp and emotions were high. Matt and I chopped and prepped all of our ingredients and were ready to roll without much anxiety at about half past eleven. The traditional parade began at 11:45 am with Matt proudly holding the Golden Spurtle. A lively band of Scottish pipers and drummers followed behind our champ, leading the way for a rather rowdy bunch of competitors and spectators.

Matt put his best foot forward and made us proud!

Matt competed in the first heat and performed admirably with his porridge and specialty Savory Oat Fritters looking better than ever. Sadly, this was not our day. We did not make it into the second round of the competition and pinned all of our hopes on our fritters. While the judges and the spectators loved our “little oat cakes,” they did not win the Specialty Category. Instead the category was won by our good friend from Calgary, Catherine Caldwell, with her concoction that was named Canadian Cranberry Apple Crunch. I will admit that I did get the lucky privilege of tasting her dish and it was outstanding. Catherine and her husband, John, stayed at the Fairwinds with us last year and are simply the nicest folks and we’re very pleased that she won.

Neil Robertson with the coveted Golden Spurtle- congrats, Neil!

The big winner was Neil Robertson from Auchtermuchty, who won using his own invention, the Spon—a double-sided spoon of sorts. His oats won the hearts of the judges and secured him as the new World Porridge Champion.

Matt, Cassidy and Dennis pose with our lucky Toucans, because "Two can, better than one." Dennis brought these for us from the Guiness Brewery in Ireland. They didn't win us the spurtle this year- but maybe next year.

Now, I know what you’re thinking and let me assure you that our team was a bit disappointed not to win, but we gave it our best shot and we are proud of the work we put in creating our dishes. We’re busy thinking about what next year will be like and very happy for the winners—especially Catherine. Really, it was hard for me not to root for her- she is a sweet woman who may just love porridge more than we do, if that’s possible.

Catherine accepts her award. As soon as I can get my hands on it, I will post her winning recipe.

Congrats Catherine!

Matt and Cassidy taste cheese at Valvona & Crolla

After nearly 30 hours of travel, our team finally planted our tired feet on Carrbridge soil yesterday for the 17th Annual Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship. I will be the first to admit that the journey was a bit harrowing and not at all smooth once we took off from Portland, Oregon on Thursday morning.

Where to begin? The trip started with a luggage malfunction at the airport, which we topped off with a gut-wrenching, bumpy flight to Newark where we had a four-hour layover. Next we boarded for Edinburgh for another bumpy ride that I was just sure would bring up my less-than-stellar dinner. Fortunately, we landed safe and sound in Scotland first thing Friday morning.

Our first mission was to make it to Valvona and Crolla, a lovely specialty food store that had secured pancetta and pecorino for our Savory Oat Fritters. Did you know it’s nearly impossible to ship meat and cheese from the United States to the United Kingdom? Well, it is. The folks at V & C were incredibly nice and let us taste all the pecorino to find just the right one. I could have spent hours in that tiny little store.

All the traffic in Edinburgh delayed our arrival at V&C, which meant we missed our train to Carrbridge. We had another two hours to kill until a train to Inverness where we would find another two hour layover. By the time we made it to Carrbridge we were seriously road weary, but the welcome we received by Lindsay and Alison at the Fairwinds Hotel was so warm that our weariness fell away.

Today dawned early (oh so early!) to an amazing fall day that was warm and sunny, not at all like the wet Scotland you hear so much about. The fall colors are just coming on here and you really feel like you fell into a fairytale. After breakfast we started what we thought would be our easiest and fastest practice yet, but as Murphy’s Law proves far too often, if something can go wrong it will. And, my word, did it ever go wrong.

Frying pancetta and preparing our red sauce for the final practice.

I guess it could have been worse- our oats might not have made it or Matt might have broken his hand or… well, this was pretty bad.  The timer was set and we were running through the full-blown dish, everything was going smoothly until we put our fritters in the deep-fryer basket and submerged them in the oil and heard… nothing. Not a crackle or a pop- not a sound. That is about the worst noise a deep fryer can make. Long story short- it wasn’t working and wouldn’t be working for the competition. Matt and I tried a few things and settled on a flattened fritter that will be pan-fried. It tastes the same, maybe not so pretty, but still tasty and that’s over half the battle right there.

We were beat after that, but finally feeling confident again by the time we met up with the rest of the competitors for a mixer and a bit of lively chatter at the town hall. The competition starts around 11:30 am tomorrow, so wish us luck and check back here to find out how we did. You can find more photos of our journey so far on Flikr, here.

Cheers!

I made friends with a highland cow, which put me back in the spirit for tomorrow.

Here we go again!

Our intrepid team from Bob’s Red Mill embarks early tomorrow morning for Scotland. We had our last state-side practice this morning and made our dish in record time. Matt is feeling pretty confident and our team is ready to get on the road (er, plane).

I’ll be posting updates and photos from our trip here on our blog, on our Facebook page and on Twitter. Cheer us on and watch to see if we can bring home the Golden Spurtle one more time!

Cheers!

P.S. In case you missed it, check out Bob’s Savory Oat Fritters to see what we’re taking as our specialty dish.

Can Matt keep the trophy? Watch here to find out how we do on Sunday.

We have a mere six days until the 2010 Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship! Boxes have shipped, lists are being made and we’re all scrambling like mad to be sure we won’t forget anything (read: trophy). We hope we can secure ourselves another win and we’re feeling pretty confident. Matt is full of energy to take on the Scotts and Bob is just pleased as punch that we’re heading back to one of his favorite spots.

After the competition, we’ll be taking a bit of much-needed R and R, so I’ve lined up some great guest posts and have an awesome giveaway that I’ll tell you a bit more about tomorrow. Keep up to date with our progress here, on Twitter and on Facebook.

We need your support to be the best we can possibly be and I know Matt would love to hear from you over the next few days. Leave us comments here or give us a holler on Facebook and Twitter and show Matt just how much you love him!