Bread Fest in Gilbert is a celebration of how far Arizona’s local grain movement has come

There are festivals of all kinds all over the Valley these days, from tacos to pizza to music to crafts. There’s a fest for just about everything. But our next guest is here to tell you about a brand new festival coming up this weekend about one of my very favorite things: bread.

Emma Zimmerman is the co-owner and founder of Hayden Flour Mills. She and her dad brought back the historic mill 13 years ago, growing and milling heritage Arizona grains and making all kinds of interesting flours, oats, grains and wheats from it.

Today, the movement they started here is everywhere. And Bread Fest will celebrate it. They’re holding it at Barrio Bagel & Slice in Gilbert, a new operation opened by famed Tucson baker Don Guerra. They’re even holding a sourdough competition. Tickets were sold out as of Friday morning.

Zimmerman joined The Show to talk more about it — including why her dad got into milling to begin with.

Amber Victoria Singer

/

KJZZ

Full conversation

EMMA ZIMMERMAN: He was really getting into sourdough baking, seeing how flour being the main ingredient, had kind of lost its flavor and its character. So he started milling at home, got really into stone milling, then that led to growing local grains, finding all these heritage grains that had so much flavor and interest and color and character. And yeah, that was 13 years ago. Now we have all these local chefs, local bakers, just a brand new movement.

LAUREN GILGER: And I think movement is the right word for it because in the last almost 15 years now that you've been doing this, this is not that out of the ordinary anymore, I guess like you were the first ones probably in the area at least to reopen an old mill and like really do this the old fashioned way, but lots of people are doing this now. It sounds like it's spread. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, every state now has their local grain movement, their artisanal mills, so that's so encouraging. And even her customers have gotten so sophisticated. They know the names of these grains. They're asking for them, like, “Oh, do you have a spelt? Do you have einkorn,” names that people didn't know about, you know, when we started.

So I just feel so encouraged with how much progress we've made, how many local bakers are using local grains and are excited and aren't afraid when we first started, it was a real sell on like “Just give it a try, maybe add a little bit to your bread,” and now, you know, like I said, they're asking for them. They're seeing that difference of a conventional industrial flour being a little tasteless, a little boring, and having fun adding these grains.

GILGER: People are definitely into bread. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes.

GILGER: So you're throwing the first ever Bread Fest, a great name for it, by the way, and it's sort of supposed to be, you know, obviously a celebration of bread, but you know, a small town festival. What do you have planned here? 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, so the idea kind of came from customers coming into our store, showing us pictures of their loaves of bread, you know, like they're their children.

GILGER: They're proud. 

ZIMMERMAN: They're proud. I was like, “OK, when you make a loaf of sourdough bread at home, it is so magical and you're so proud of yourself. Let's give our customers a place to show off their loaves of breads in this very wholesome kind of retro state fair-esque festival.”

So there will be this sourdough competition for home bakers. We also have a cottage baker category, and it's going to be just a lot of eating of bread. We have a local baker from Wickenburg making a butter sculpture for us. It's kind of a showpiece.

GILGER: It sounds like the Iowa State Fair with the butter cow. I get what you're going for here. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, there will be a butter cow. A wheat craft for kids. So very simple, you know, just back to basics like gathering the community to celebrate how far we've come with local grains, and all the amazing bakers we have here in Arizona that we didn't have, you know, 13 years ago. The sourdough competition is going to be, you know, a friendly competition.

GILGER: But someone's gonna want to win it, I'm sure. 

ZIMMERMAN: Still try your best.

GILGER: I mean tell us about that a little more because I know during the pandemic a lot of people talked about their sourdough bread and their starters, but this is like sparked, it seems like a whole culture of people who are very into their sourdoughs, whether they're baking them at home or not. So I mean, are you hearing from people excited to enter this? 

ZIMMERMAN: The home baker category sold out so quickly. Do you bake at all?

GILGER: No, not really. 

ZIMMERMAN: OK, yeah, so it's like you cross over. Once you have a sourdough starter, you get into it. You just can't help it. It's so addicting. It's so amazing to just see this thing you grow on your counter into these loaves of bread that you're just like. Yeah, you just, you can't stop.

GILGER: You can't stop.

ZIMMERMAN: So it is for those “breadheads,” the people that are just really into their hobby, and they can come to Bread Fest and just be their nerdy bread selves with all the other people that love bread.

GILGER: Did you just say “breadheads?” 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes.

GILGER: All right, that's a new one I'm gonna have to use. And it's also in partnership with or hosted by sort of a very famous Arizona baker, Don Guerra, who used to be based in Tucson, and he has a new place in Gilbert. Tell us about this. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, so Bread Fest is gonna be hosted at Don Guerra's Barrio Bagel & Slice in Gilbert, and he has a beautiful new drive-through restaurant there and it's gonna be set up in his parking lot just kind of like a farmers' market type festival.

And so we're really lucky that he was excited to host and he's a big user of local grains. He's been really important in the local grain economy and such a champion of local grains. So of course it makes sense that we would be partnering with him.

GILGER: Yeah, I mean, he's a James Beard award-winning baker of bread, like he's known for bread, he's not making like French pastries, right?

Talk a little bit about the fact that that exists today. I mean, you think about bread and it seems relatively basic to folks, but he's taking it to a whole different level. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, it's amazing what he's done and again using local grains and really kind of adapting to, “OK, what can we grow in Arizona?” Because we can't grow all the grains, but grains that are desert adapted, use less water to grow, and he's kind of been inspired by that.

So it's been this great like synergy with him to see what he takes from our mill and then turns it into. I mean, he probably has a menu of 15 different breads and they're all just unique. I'll just go through different phases where I'm like, “oh the Einkorn Miche, like it's so amazing.” And he does a Chiltepin Cheddar Fougasse, a Sonoran Sourdough ...

GILGER: You're making me hungry.

ZIMMERMAN: I know I have his menu memorized. But yeah he’s just really taken, it's just the way that he shows off the Arizona grains is so accessible too. Like they are beautiful works of art for sure, but they're really accessible as well.

He's been really generous too as an educator around sourdough, so he does classes. You can always show up at his restaurant or bakery, and he'll give you some of his sourdough starter, which I think is really fun to get people hooked on baking at home.

GILGER: That's quite a starter to get gifted with. Wow. I mean, I think that's interesting. You mentioned something there about how you can't grow every heritage grain in Arizona. Have you seen the rising heat in the Valley, the climate change impacts hit your industry as well? 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, absolutely. We have seen the impact of water on our crops over the years. There's less water for crops, but that's OK because the way we built our business was finding seeds that are desert adapted, use less water to grow, knowing that that was going to become more and more of a problem.

When it does rain during our growing season, we're always like, wow, so grateful because sometimes we wouldn't have made it without that rain.

GILGER: Well, so I wonder in light of that, right, like it is changing here and you've been growing this for so long as we started the conversation talking about, where do you see this going in the future?

Are you going to be continuing to grow in Arizona? Are you looking for other places to grow? I mean, is this something you feel like, is that gonna be something you can continue going forward? 

ZIMMERMAN: Yes, we are always looking for more farmers to partner with, especially would love to see some young farmers, you know, getting started, coming on board, growing for us. I think Phoenix is just getting started on its potential to really use local grains, and I hope we'll be around for many, many more years.

The original Hayden Flour Mills was started in 1874. It did have a brief period where it was, you know, out of business. We restarted it in 2011, and I hope we can just keep going for another century. I don't know. My daughter wants to work for Hayden Flour Mill, so I'm like, “OK, at least, you know, till she grows up.”

GILGER: You've got one generation to keep it going. All right, we'll leave it there for now. Bread Fest is coming up on Nov. 2.