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I'm Alicia, your effervescent Peter Pan, helping you add a sense of color to your home or shop.
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I love how many awesome small businesses exist in this area of Northern Virginia. We have pottery studios, tea rooms, sewing studios, and the subject of this post, breadmaking classes, amongst many others.
Knead and Know is a home-based business out of Leesburg, VA. I first heard about Melinda’s classes through Rebecca at A Daily Something earlier this year. Utterly obsessed at first sight. I had to get myself into one of her classes, and luckily my husband was on board as well. So the two of us decided that as our wedding anniversary approached, it would be our gift to ourselves to take the baguette class on a Sunday afternoon in June, and so it was.
Given that the classes are taught out of the kitchen, Melinda keeps her classes small, just 3 or 4 people, max. Jon and I were joined by one of my Finch sewing friends, Gretchen for 4.5 hours of breadmaking fun. Class started with a brief overview of the breadmaking process, including how Melinda has come up with her technique through years of baking. We began in the middle of the process with dough she’d already mixed up for us and learned how to weigh, shape, and roll the dough into baguettes. While this batch rose, we went back to the beginning and learned about the use of fermented ‘old’ dough, weighed out the rest of the ingredients, and tried our hands at a kneading technique that was new to us all.
By this time, our baguettes were ready to go into the oven, and we were ready to get our eat on, because oh yes, Melinda believes that the eating is just as important as the baking. Her spread did not disappoint: wine, cheese, meat, salad, spreads, and more were brought outside, because the rain hadn’t yet arrived and so hey, why not enjoy our labor under a shady tree in the backyard?
Over a few baguettes (and several glasses of wine), the four of us ate and discussed everything from the joy that dogs bring, to the importance of gatherings like this.
So I leave you with photos of our adventure along with a quote that I think aptly describes the anniversary baking celebration that Jon and I enjoyed together on Sunday:
“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.” – Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
I've pulled together my favorite and most-used art supplies + tools to make the process easy for you!
I make whimsical art for color-lovers and California dreamers. I'm based in Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. where there are most decidedly no palm trees in sight.