·       WHERE: Atwater Crossing located at 3245 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039

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·       WHEN: Sunday, February 5, 2012 from 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

·       COST:  Panel discussion is free and open to the public; $45 per person for priority seating to the panel discussion,  prix fixe lunch and a donation to The Whole Grain Connection;; payment is accepted prior to the event via PayPal or at the event with cash or check

·       RSVP: Please RSVP to commongrains@wagstaffworldwide.com

The foodways of both Japanese and American local cuisines have roots in “traditional” grains like rice and buckwheat (soba). In this panel discussion, each speaker describes how new sourcing of grains has allowed them to connect to traditional cuisines and revive these ingredients in the context of local American cuisines. They explore how these traditional grains from North American and Japan have re-surfaced on the menus of both “common cuisine” and haute cuisine. They offer examples of how “traditional” grains like buckwheat and Carolina rice have been re-imagined in dishes like griddle foods, pastas, breads, and pastries and they speculate how these grains might mingle in the future—though they took different routes to the contemporary table.

    A former historic restoration and hospitality design planner, Glenn Roberts founded Anson Mills in 1998 to reintroduce lowcountry ingredients once prominent in the Antebellum Southern pantry. Today, Anson Mills produces artisan organic heirloom grain, legume, and oil seed ingredients from crops grown across the South and in parts of New England for chefs and home cooks in the United States and abroad. Additionally, Glenn provides pro bono seedsmanship to the growing community of rice farmers along the southern Atlantic coast. A founding member of the Fellowship of Farmers, Artisans and Chefs, Glenn is also president and CEO of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation. He was the 2008 recipient of the Artisan of the Year Award from Bon Appétit magazine and the 2010 Food Arts Silver Spoon Award.

    Monica Spiller has taken a special interest in whole grain foods since 1982, beginning with the question: Why do we not eat our grain foods whole, when we have so much evidence that this is the truly healthful and tasty form? In her quest she has studied nutrition, and in the 1980s she emphasized the study of the microbiology of sourdough fermentation in whole grain bread making. During the 1990s she grew more than 70 varieties of wheat with the help of many farmers, eventually selecting 12 landrace varieties suitable for organic farming in California.
In 2000 she founded the Whole Grain Connection, non-profit, so that farmers could be supplied with farm scale quantities of non-proprietary landrace wheat. Organic vegetable farmers have been the main customers and they sell all their grain at Farmers Markets and locally quite easily. However, large-scale organic grain growers need a strong local grain infrastructure in order to succeed in selling locally. Recognizing what is needed to enable the supply of whole grains locally, and then attempting to fill those needs, is the focus of her current efforts.

    Baker Roxana Jullapat honed her skills in some of the best California kitchens: La Brea Bakery, Campanile, Bastide, Lucques and A.O.C.. Her strongest suit is in working with fruit, and her dessert menu, one of the most market-driven in town, consistently gets rave reviews. In later years, she has taken special interest in working with heirloom grains and incorporating them in her bread and dessert repertoire. In November 2011, Roxana along with chef Daniel Mattern, opened Cooks County, a long-awaited restaurant of her own, with partners Claudio Blotta and Adria Tennor Blotta.