ABOUT Clare
I like to get the basics right, and then the details can follow. Eat well, move well, communicate well, and connect with each other.
Bread is one of the basics in our lives that I really believe is worth getting right; it’s not known as the staff of life for nothing. Delicious and satisfying, bread, in it’s myriad forms, has been fuelling our adventures and endeavours for thousands of years.
A biologist by training, I left lab research on Malaria for the more flexible ‘cell culture’ of baking. I used to tend my malaria Malaria parasites sometimes day and night; I now nurture my sourdough starter: populations of wild yeasts and bacteria that when treated right, work together to transform flour, water and salt into many varied and nourishing loaves.
I learned to bake wholegrain sourdough from a maverick baker at the (now closed) Steamie Bakehouse in Dunfermline. Using local grains with softer gluten, and baking in his own design of wood-fired oven, ‘The Steamie’ was ahead of it’s time, but it has proved to have been the best grounding in this craft I could have wished for.
Seeking to understand and get involved in changing Scotland’s food system to something that works for everyone and everything in it - the eaters, the farmers, the growers, the cooks and the natural environment in which it all happens, that we are in fact a part of, and not separate to, I worked at Nourish Scotland. Whilst at Nourish, I met Andrew Whitley and his late wife Veronica Burke as they were dreaming up what would become Scotland The Bread; I joined the board where I have been ever since.
I love how bread is one lens through which to see the whole food system, and I love the alchemy of making it, that it’s simple to start and make something wonderful, but endlessly engaging to make that particular loaf you are after.
The connections forged are powerful and important too, through baking I am connected to the landscape, the soil, the changing seasons and my community, near and far.
Bread is one of the basics in our lives that I really believe is worth getting right; it’s not known as the staff of life for nothing. Delicious and satisfying, bread, in it’s myriad forms, has been fuelling our adventures and endeavours for thousands of years.
A biologist by training, I left lab research on Malaria for the more flexible ‘cell culture’ of baking. I used to tend my malaria Malaria parasites sometimes day and night; I now nurture my sourdough starter: populations of wild yeasts and bacteria that when treated right, work together to transform flour, water and salt into many varied and nourishing loaves.
I learned to bake wholegrain sourdough from a maverick baker at the (now closed) Steamie Bakehouse in Dunfermline. Using local grains with softer gluten, and baking in his own design of wood-fired oven, ‘The Steamie’ was ahead of it’s time, but it has proved to have been the best grounding in this craft I could have wished for.
Seeking to understand and get involved in changing Scotland’s food system to something that works for everyone and everything in it - the eaters, the farmers, the growers, the cooks and the natural environment in which it all happens, that we are in fact a part of, and not separate to, I worked at Nourish Scotland. Whilst at Nourish, I met Andrew Whitley and his late wife Veronica Burke as they were dreaming up what would become Scotland The Bread; I joined the board where I have been ever since.
I love how bread is one lens through which to see the whole food system, and I love the alchemy of making it, that it’s simple to start and make something wonderful, but endlessly engaging to make that particular loaf you are after.
The connections forged are powerful and important too, through baking I am connected to the landscape, the soil, the changing seasons and my community, near and far.
