Get to Know the Market: Tall Grass Bakery

If you’re like our family, you’ve been baking a lot during the pandemic. But now that it’s hot outside and inside (especially for those of us without air conditioning), we think it’s a good time to let the professionals do what they do best and give our ovens a summer break. So we connected with Tall Grass Bakery’s head baker and owner Amanda Irving to learn more about their products and the (simple) secret to good bread.

Can you tell us how you got started?
I started working at Tall Grass for the original owner in 2001... at that time we were mostly baking bread—the same hand-formed organic varieties that we still make. I took over the bakery in 2008 and added pastries and granolas to the lineup.

What have you learned since launching in 2000?
So much! It’s been 20 years! You learn new things every time you bake bread, it’s basically magic that you can eat

What are your most popular products? 
Always baguettes, fougasse, all rye, granola, hominy. But really all of it... 
Right now it’s walnut pain au levain and cherry pumpernickel that we can’t make enough of. 

How do you like the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market? This is your first year, right? 
So far, we love it. It has a nice pace and friendly neighborhood feeling. (We did attend some years ago but maybe it was a different market group.) It’s the neighborhood I live in, but I’m always baking on Thursday night. I hope to swing by soon. 

How is it going for you with everyone baking more at home? How has covid impacted your business?
We are still pretty busy at the shop in Ballard, but we have cut our hours significantly and are only going to five smaller farmers’ markets this summer. So, it’s much slower than our usual summer where we are at 10 markets a week. And most of our wholesale accounts are still closed, so I only have half the usual staff. Me and a few of my longtime bakers are doing all the baking five days a week instead of seven.

Any bread baking tips for home bakers?
Use good flour!

Will you be selling anything new this week or this month at the market? 
Not at the moment, I’m too busy...but there are a few things I’d like to try soon. 

Interview by QAFM reporter Max Chandrasekaran