GRIST AND TOLL

I’m ignoring the forecasted heat spike over the weekend and instead continue living in the crisp fall moment we are having. I made soup, started reading a new book, purchased two cozy sweaters and baked these perfectly crunchy, cheesy nibbles engineered by @sarah_c_owens which have become essential to my enjoyment of all of the above. Sarah, you are brilliant and you also take a mean link to recipe in profile *AND I VOTED! Have you? By the way, these crackers make an excellent standing-in-line-to-vote snack. Because the consensus it’s too late to mail your ballot now. Locate an official drop box or make your plan to vote in person. #vote #democracy #takenothingforgranted #makeyourvoiceheard

100% whole grain, 100% naturally leavened. Crazy flour blend because I keep forgetting what I have in my home bins: Hard Red, Spelt, and Durum. @angelescrestcreamery Cajeta, brown sugar, cardamom, coconut filling. #wholegrainpastry #laminateddough #naturalfermentation #theflouristhepower

New *old* flour in the shop and available online! Marquis wheat has quite a story and place in history. You can learn all about it (and prove the depths of your grain geekiness) by clicking on the link in our profile to read a new blog post. Thank you, James, @bartonspringsmill for sharing some of your 2020 harvest with me. Loving it so much. This one’s for you! #knowyourwheat #knowyourmiller #flourambassador #graingeek #historyiscool #lookbacktomoveforward

Now milling for your polenta cooking and eating enjoyment, heirloom yellow corn brought over from Oaxaca by @masienda Very happy to be working with another L.A. based company fighting the good fight for seed, farmers and better food. Flavor as rich and bright as its #popart color! #tastethegrainbow #supportchange #smallagriculture #transformfoodsystems

Back in stock online and in the retail shop! 8-inch round and 9-inch oval. #bakersgottabake

A LONG TIME COMING! For years the CA grain community has gathered and expressed the need for a platform to help build community and bridges to the marketplace. Thanks to @californiawheat we now have one. Farmers looking for customers and customers looking for grain or flour now have a better chance of finding one another. Looking for seed availability or variety details? We have you! Recipes and Discussion Forum too. All growers, millers, maltsters, bakers and eaters are we...lcome - no collaborator is too small. Diversity and regional production are more important than ever. All of us listed in the directories are working to feed our communities and toward making lasting, healthy agricultural change. I’m proud to have helped bring this web tool to fruition, aware this is just the first step. But it’s a BIG STEP! Please take a look and engage often. We can’t build a strong and sustainable grain community without you! www.goldenstategrains.com #californiastrong #knowyourwheat #knowyourfarmer #knowyourmiller #fightforchange #diversity #community #buildingbridges

6/1/20 Update We are opening the retail shop for walk-in business this week on 6/3/20, normal hours Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00-5:00 with the following restrictions: -Face masks are required -Number of customers in the shop at one time will be limited -We will retrieve your products for you and will also be wearing gloves and mask... -Please do not come to the shop if you feel unwell or have a fever, you can still order online and have your products shipped if necessary *Online inventory on our website has been updated and is available again for shipping only. Do not place an online order if you want to pick up at the mill. Curbside pickup is no longer necessary since we'll be opening our doors. Please stay safe everyone! We have missed you and look forward to seeing you again as we all try to slowly regain some normalcy.

5/19/20 Some news: -Grist & Toll will be closed next week 5/25-5/31 for spring cleaning and some repairs. -Due to the break, we have increased flour inventory levels for purchase and shipping on our web store this week and there are still quantities available. -As requested, we have a new blog post devoted to feeding/refreshing your starter. You can find it here: https://www.gristandtoll.com/how-to-feed-refresh-your-sour/... As always, everyone just keep doing what you have to do to stay safe and healthy. Details of how we might begin opening up the retail shop again will be posted after our short break.

4/27/20: Available flour inventory for this week is live on our web store, including more of the dehydrated sourdough starter kits. We are still shipping only, no curbside pickup this week. The website is no longer crashing, but it will be painfully slow when everyone jumps on to order. You just have to hang in there. Pictured here, is a recipe we have been testing over and over again at the mill, using various types of flour and blends. This one 50/50 Hard Red/Hard White. It is WSU Bread Lab's The Approachable Loaf. Here's where to find the recipe: http://thebreadlab.wsu.edu/the-approachable-loaf/

4/20/20: We have added fresh inventory to the web store for this week, including limited quantities of Farmer Mai's Wit Wolkoring and Chiddam Blanc de Mars. Also now available, the item pictured above: a kit with our dehydrated whole grain sourdough culture to get you up and running with your own sourdough starter. We've made a few 5-lb bags of our regular assortment available too, to see how it goes reintroducing that size as well.

Aaaaaand I’m back with an update: Yesterday the traffic to our web store was so heavy it was overloaded again before I could even log in to add new inventory! This time it has taken over 24 hours to reset, but more flour is now available for purchase to be shipped this week. We are no longer offering curbside pickup, only shipping. If you placed an order before 4/13 for pickup at the mill, it is ready Yes, your order is ready! Please come this week Wed-Sat between 11-5 to collect your flour. Sorry for the online ordering drama! Really thought we had corrected the server issues last week to prevent this from happening again. If it crashes again today, I’m going to view that as divine intervention and take the rest of the week off, lol! Please continue to check our website Blog Page for COVID-19 operations updates with more detail.

4/6/20 11:30am: OK, so that went well! The website is down folks: overloaded right now. We are increasing capacity, but it will take several hours to reset. Please enjoy a beverage and some tunes of your choice and check back in later tonight or tomorrow. Sense of humor increasingly important these days!

Operations and Flour Availability Update 4/6/20: -Our retail shop remains closed to the public, but we are still accepting online orders for either shipping or curbside pickup at the mill. -We now have a blog page that will be updated weekly with the most current questions and answers regarding our operations and what to expect. Please visit that page, which will hopefully answer the most pressing questions. At this time, we are not able to return all calls or email inquirie...s, but we are trying to work our way through them and get to you all. In the meantime, the most common questions are covered on the new blog page. Check back frequently for updates and more details. The date at the top will change to reflect a new entry: https://www.gristandtoll.com/covid-19-grist-toll-operation/ Everyone stay safe and healthy!

Retail Update 3/30/20: In an effort to continue operating safely and efficiently, we will be closing the retail shop this week to walk-in customers. All retail sales will now take place exclusively on our web store at www.gristandtoll.com. Orders can be shipped, or local customers may continue to select store pickup upon checkout for curbside pickup. With just one mill, there is only so much flour we can produce each week. Please understand and be patient with us. It takes... several days to build up more fresh flour inventory after selling out each week. We will update quantities for sale on the website as flour is milled and available for purchase. We know it’s frustrating we feel you! There is no joy for us in turning people away or running out of product. For now, only our 2.5# retail bags are available for sale. We hope that as the grocery chains achieve higher stock levels we will be able to resume our normal sizes and offerings. Until then, we rely on your consideration of others and hope you will only order what you truly need and not one of everything that is available. Until and unless there is a mandate to stop all work, we will have grain and we will continue milling flour each week. Please stay tuned to our social media outlets for updates. A million thanks and virtual hugs for the continued support. Stay healthy and keep on baking on!