Home Grown, Home-ground
by Deborah Schell Macaluso

The sustainable foodie police would be delighted. Destination found—the Wild Hive Farm Store, Clinton Corners, now a community hub in the wheel of the artisanal food movement, is thriving on site and on line. Proprietor Don Lewis and staff, with an extensive network of Hudson Valley farmers and micro-entrepreneurs, are proving that it is possible to make a local dream come true... one grain at a time. This burgeoning Locavore Movement and its champions, Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, embrace the highest shopping goal: to eat only food produced within 100 miles. It’s been a long time coming.

Alton Earnhart, of Lightning Tree Farm in Millbrook, was experimenting with making flour by putting in a small crop of wheat in the late 1990s. Don, the son of a local poultry farmer, had always raised chickens, kept honeybees (hence the name Wild Hive), and was a regular vendor at the Union Square Greenmarket. One morning synergy struck. Don went out in search of organic feed for his hens and came upon a barrel of flour Alton had made with a small mill. In an inspiring partnership between a farmer and a miller. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Earnhart are now leaders in restoring wheat fields in our region and reviving flour mills across the country. Lightning Tree Farm has almost 50 acres of custom-grown fields of oats, corn, rye, triticale, spelt, and heirloom varieties. Don has taken charge of stone grinding, the traditional way, 100 percent locally grown organic grain into a wide variety of flour for 100 percent of his baked goods.

The Hudson Valley, the breadbasket of the young United States, once grew and milled its own russet and heritage red fife wheat. Today, almost all of our country’s wheat is grown and milled in factories in the Midwest. Now, small pockets of farmers, millers, and bakers are experimenting with native grains and local milling. Bees, hens, pigs, community dinners, wood-fired hearth oven on the road, dreams of doubling a mill’s capacity in a year, edible schoolyards: a delicious revolution.

“I had known this space forever. It was once a general store and various cafés, and I knew how much the town needed a gathering place. And I needed to expand my baking and milling operation, so it all came together,” Don Lewis greeted us at the door of his farm store last December. The double-screened door slammed behind us as we huddled in out of the cold. Broad, silver-painted tin ceiling, bright turquoise colored walls, brilliant photographs of plowed fields captured my eye. This November, Wild Hive marked one remarkable year of celebratory baking and micro milling. Don and Wild Hive have a mission. Don explains: “My main goal is to offer an option. For me, it is not just about providing a better bread, more about creating a system that will continue to operate and flourish well after I am gone.” Friendships walk through Don Lewis’s door. Amy Lawton, cook and Don’s right arm, announced to Don nearly a decade ago that “One day, I will work for you.” Today she serves a breakfast and lunch to run to Wild Hive for. The café menu changes daily. House-made yogurt, corn or pear-walnut muffins, smoked cheddar biscuits, omelets, French toast supreme, signature salads, superb soups, savory pies, scrumptious lemon squares make one weak. “Nineteen Wild Hive organic flours!!!” the pastry counter screams. The freezer demands: “Eat more. Empty your wallet. Take me home.” Don, you’re right… now people are paying attention, and the oven’s hot.