As I turned on Jay Road from 28th Street, I spied the small sign advertising the Diaz Farm and “artisan bread.” It seemed like an odd, out-of-way locale to find a new source of stellar dough.
Jay Road is the divide where North Boulder urban starts to become rural. Other notable farms (including Black Cat) pop up as you drive east. When you walk, bike or drive onto the Diaz Farm dirt driveway, it doesn’t seem like a retail destination. It’s the home of Pepe and Veronica Diaz and their family.
Park near the farm store, a large room at the side of the house that is also the site of the micro Revival Bread Company. The patio full of picnic tables sits next to the newest addition, the Tierra y Fuego food truck.
This is not your standard story of boy meets girl and they pursue their families’ agricultural and culinary traditions. Frankly, the couple knew nothing about farming, Veronica says. They also had little bread-making experience and had never operated a food truck. “I was an engineer for a gas equipment maker. We had never really gardened that much,” Pepe says with a grin.
They moved from California and bought the acreage in 2015 to grow organic food for their family, but soon found they had a surplus. Diaz Farm was started to create community and offer sustainable produce grown in the neighborhood, not transported by truck. This year the bumper crop features organic kale, chard and tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, summer squash, relleno-ready Anaheim chilies and salad mix.
Step behind the house and you are on the farm, as more than 100 free-range laying hens and some geese move toward the visitor as one. Except for the background traffic hum, you’d never know you were only blocks from the hubbub at 28th Street and the Diagonal Highway.
Most of the produce, eggs and bread goes to the CSA (community supported agriculture) members, and the remainder is available to the public.
They started making bread three winters ago, taking advantage of Colorado’s recent Cottage Foods law. “Farming is slow in the winter so I started learning about bread baking,” he said. He studied the current bible of bread-making, Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza (Ten Speed Press) by Ken Forkish.
Diaz uses clay baking dishes in his convection oven to craft a great crust for the real sourdough bread in several variations, including kalamata olive and jalapeno cheddar. I sampled an outstanding round loaf of walnut cranberry sourdough with a toothsome crust, a moist interior and a wonderful balanced flavor.
He uses organic white flour with 30 percent ancient grains — kamut and spelt, which he freshly grinds as needed in a small mill. The bread undergoes a slow fermentation. “I start the dough out warm and then finish it cooler. That way it really develops more flavor,” he says.
“We make 120 loaves a week in small quantities. When I shape dough in the morning it quiets my mind, almost like a meditation practice,” he says.
Once the farm quiets in November, they start making crusty sourdough baguettes that some fans compare to the best loaves they sampled in France.
On the day I visited, brisket, pork belly and chicken were in the smoker getting ready for tacos, tortas and burritos, which are sold every weekend. Tierra y Fuego is also open Tuesdays when most CSA members pick up their shares. “With the food truck we wanted to come full circle and cook with the food we grow and share our Mexican culture with our community,” he says.
Taste the tomatoes
“Real tomatoes are an article of faith, a rallying point for the morally serious, a grail,” wrote Raymond Sokolov. If you take tomatoes seriously, you need to be at Boulder’s 2018 Taste of Tomato, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 25 at Growing Gardens, 630 Hawthorn Ave. This thoroughly homegrown event offers tastes of dozens of tomato varieties harvested that morning. You can be admitted free if you bring three or more medium to large tomatoes or 10-plus small or cherry tomatoes. They must be from one named tomato variety. Attendees taste and vote for their favorite cherry, beefsteak, paste, and slicing/salad varieties. Master Gardeners answer tomato-growing queries and talk about seed-saving. harlequinsgardens.com.
Local food news
Bella La Crema Bistro and Butter Bar is opening soon in Lyons, serving 20 different flavored savory and sweet freshly churned butters along with buttermilk bread, ketogenic buttered coffee and small bites. … Lunetta Italian Restaurant is open at 2785 Iris Ave., former location of Arugula, Laudisio and, long ago, A La Carte. … Flower Child restaurant is open at 2580 Arapahoe Ave., much to the ironic amusement of actual Boulder flower children who frequented the Carnival Café, New Age Foods and other early natural foods eateries in Boulder. … Sancho’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant is closing its Boulder location near the DMV, but their Gunbarrel location at 6545 Gunpark Drive offers the same menu. … Denver’s Oskar Blues Grill & Brew hosts a Culinary Hurly Burly Aug. 24 starring Top Chef contenders Carrie Baird (Bar Dough), Brother Luck, and Ace of Cakes pastry whiz Duff Goldman. Proceeds will be used to purchase bikes and musical instruments for Denver school kids. bit.ly/thehurlyburly. … Denver’s Call restaurant (which seats only 17 people inside) has been named one of America’s Top 10 Best New Restaurants by Bon Appétit.
Words to chew on
“The greatest drawback (to corn on the cob) is the way in which it is necessary to eat it… It looks awkward enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from considerations of grace is not to be thought of.” — Harriet Martineau
John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles podcasts at: news.kgnu.org/category/radio-nibbles.
