Fabulous Flour

Yesterday I made an increasingly rare foray into the field of paid work and training, and went to Dubbo to run one of my Strengths Approach workshops. It was quite good fun now that I only do it occasionally but the real payoff was that in Dubbo I have found a Flour Mill, that mills local grain and has a retail outlet. Very exciting. I have learnt a lot about all things bread from the wonderful http://figjamandlimecordial.com . A while back I found the shop Celia recommended, Harkola Wholefood , www.harkola.com.au    and purchased a bag of Manildra Bakers flour among other things. I was really happy with this flour but even though we live near Manildra have been unable to buy any up here and as I am not going to Sydney very often thought I would be going back to supermarket flour. Which would be a shame as the quality of my bread has improved noticeably with the new flour. I think it is because the flour is just so fresh, it feels silky smooth.
Anyway after work yesterday I went to Ben Furney flour Mills to buy some flour. Their retail shop is lovely and full of all sorts of products for baking and cooking, many of them ingredients that I find difficult to source up here. The other thing was that I had not realised they grow and mill their own flour. I find that very exciting, surely that is how food production ought to be in a sustainable system. Grown, processed and retailed locally!
As well as the flour range and cooking ingredients they also stock a range of poultry and animal feeds. Poultry feed has been  a dilemma for me as I want to buy organic but is is prohibitively expensive. This feed while not organic, is chemical free and locally grown. It is no more expensive than any commercially available feed either. I will also be able to get feed for the goats and horses from here. So a great find indeed.
I cant wait to bake with this flour.

Comments

celia said…
Anne, that's great news! I hope you like the BF flour as much as I do. I bought the Premium bread flour, so I'm curious what the MaxiPro will be like - will look forward to reading about your adventures with it!

Thanks for the links, and have a great weekend! :)
June 3, 2011 at 2:58 PM
Anonymous said…
We have been doing alot of traing at work on the difference between organic, bio dynamic and natural wines, we have lernt that whilst something can be certified organic this only relates to the growing process and not to what happens after it has been harvested, for example they can grow the grapes in accordance with the organic standards but once it is bottles many chemicals etc can be added.
Were as wines that are labled natural are grown in a natural way and also bottle and manufactured in a natural way.I wonder if this is the same with flour and all other organic food?? The wine producer we spooke to said yes? Something I found quiet interesting. Also natural wines and food is NOT something that is certified just something that is practiced as a belief by many farmers. It was very interesting to hear that these natural farmers viewed the organic labling to be miss leading consumers, as I would have assumed that something labled organic would mean that the product was natural?? not the case according to the natural farmer that spoke at my work......it just means the farming process is certified organic but what happens and is added to it after that.......? just something to think about.Sally
June 3, 2011 at 10:57 PM
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