.the meditation of baking.

A few years ago I found a baker, originally from Maine who baked her way south to a little spot outside of Asheville, NC in Madison County. Tara Jensen is a baker, artist and community builder. I fell in love with her slow living, how she combined art + baking and vulnerable Instagram posts.  About 3 years ago she started hosting workshops in her mountain bakery focusing on bread, pizza and pie.  I was able to attend on of her workshops the summer of 2015, having just ended a job and looking ahead to what was next it seemed like the perfect adventure. I had been to Asheville before as my Mom's family lives on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains. Asheville is such a vibrant town overflowing with traditional craft and young creatives bordered by the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains. The workshop was hidden up in the hillside I had to drive the winding roads twice before I noticed the blue house with the wood fire oven tucked up in the trees. It was a truly inspiring experience I traveled back up to Boston with her gift of a sourdough starter hidden in my bag.

I have continued to follow Tara’s journey as she bakes, had her heart broken/fell in love/got married, taught workshops at Bon Appetite and wrote her first cookbook, A Baker’s Year! So when she announced she was going on a small book tour starting in Maine, revisiting the first bakers/bakeries who guided her from the beginning I was thrilled to attend another workshop and this time Apple Pie!  She makes more of a pastry crust than a traditional pie crust leaving big chunks of butter and then laminating the dough making for the flakiest crust I’ve ever had!! I also love how she uses extra dough to make finishing art. She says that living in North Carolina surrounded by crafts she is very inspired by weaving and uses forks and spoons to create incredible woven like patterns. I made a small weaving inspiration on the top of mine.

What sets Tara apart is how she approaches baking with a meditative perspective - encouraging everyone to pick a recipe and make it over and over again until you no longer need the recipe but can just feel/smell the process - when the intuition is in your hands. Tara’s workshops are such a beautiful balance of wonderful baking knowledge mixed with loving-kindness acceptance for the journey of imperfection and reminding us to keep showing up. When we keep showing up and doing what makes us happy - whatever that is - we create a beautiful ripple of positivity to ourselves, family/friend, community and world.

  

 Baking Tips from Tara Jensen:

-Use fresh milled flour or if not then try to use local flour.
Maine has a wonderful organization call Maine Grain Alliance which sell all Maine-grown flours.
-Keep everything COLD!
Butter, Flour, water....everything it will bake better
-For Apple Pie: Cut the apples with the skins on, it makes for a beautiful color when the pie is cut