Vesper Bread now available in Daybreak Boxes!

We now have bread available both in our Daybreak Boxes and as a bi/weekly add-on! From Vesper Bread in Freedom, baker Danny (who also works with us at Daybreak!) creates crafted hearth and pan loaves using wild yeast, slow fermentation processes that build flavor and digestibility, and uses local and organic ingredients. We are currently offering his 2lb Country Loaf - a classic sourdough with a tender crumb made with Maine-grown wheat and rye. The perfect platform for summer’s best bites: sliced and salted heirloom tomatoes that are just coming in, refrigerator jam made with the last strawberries and the first raspberries, or a heavy smear of rhubarb lemon curd (recipe linked in this newsletter!) for a really decadent treat. Make sure you add Vesper bread to your Daybreak Box or commit to supporting this local bakery with a bi/weekly add-on!

Recipe: Panzanella

Kelsey Kobik photos

One of the first mentions of Panzanella, a bread and tomato salad, was by a 16th-century Italian poet who said that it "surpasses all other pleasures in this life." While this sounds like a bold claim, this simple salad (that can be made with almost everything in your Daybreak Box!) deserves a spot in your summer recipe repertoire.

Panzanella is first and foremost a bread salad, and Vesper Bread sets you up for success. We recommend cubing and toasting in a 300F oven for 15 minutes resulting in a soft but crunchy bread that soaks up the veggie juices but doesn't become soggy.

The rest is simple: tomatoes (Hallbrook), basil (Buckle, Marr Pond, Villageside), summer onion (Cross Patch), and a few other pantry staples like Maine sea salt, sunflower oil (a fine substitute for traditional olive oil), apple cider vinegar. Make sure you add the ingredients you need to your Daybreak Box!

Ingredients:

A little less than half a Vesper sourdough loaf (¾ lb or 6 cups of bread, cut into 1 ½” cubes)

2 ½ lb tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces

2 tsp Maine sea salt

10 Tbsp sunflower or olive oil, divided

Basil

2 Tbsp fresh onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ tsp Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

½ cup packed basil leaves, roughly chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F
In a colander set over a bowl, toss together the tomatoes and salt and drain for a minimum of 15 minutes, tossing occasionally to help release the juices
In a large bowl, toss the cubed bread with 2 Tbsp of the oil
Spread the oiled bread onto a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or until crisp and firm but not browned
Remove the bread from the oven and allow to fully cool
Remove the tomatoes from the colander and place in a [our
To the tomato juice, add fresh onion, garlic, mustard, and vinegar and whisk to combine
Drizzle the remaining ½ cup of oil into the dressing and season with salt and pepper
Toss to combine toasted bread, tomatoes, and dressing in a large bowl with basil leaves
Let the panzanella rest for 30 minutes before enjoying to ensure that the bread has absorbed all the flavorful dressing

Photo: serious eats blog

The little town of Waldoboro has a downtown that is slowly seeing a revival of activity and opportunities, with a new bakery and cafe (Perch), a full calendar of events at the Waldo Theater, a newly-restored Inn and wine bar, all surrounded by many farms and food producers! Waldoboro’s Broad Bay Church has also undergone a revitalization, with a massive rehab project funded by the community, grants, and funds from the Maine Preservation Honor Award. If you haven’t ventured off Route 1 past Moody’s Diner, the time is now! We are happy to be part of this community by bringing our Daybreak Boxes right to the center of the town. While most of the town’s history revolves around shipbuilding, there is also a strong agricultural history including the One Pie Canning Company (you’d recognize the iconic can!) and of course, the fields of cabbage that started Morses Sauerkraut.

Look for our new yard signs to indicate Daybreak pick-up sites around Maine!

Orders must be picked up during the published pick up times.

Don't see a pickup location that works for you? Start a new one!

Contact us if your community is interested in setting up a delivery location. If you are in Central or Southern Maine and near our current delivery route we’ll happily consider it! Learn more.

See a complete list of pick up locations here.

Farmers are on the frontline of climate change

Originally published in the opinion section of the Bangor Daily News, July 20, 2023

Colleen Hanlon-Smith is the co-owner of Daybreak Growers Alliance and owner of Peak Season foodservice distribution, both based in Unity. Through her work, she markets and distributes products from more than 100 Maine farmers and food producers.

Here in Maine the summer crop is coming in earnest after a deluge in May and June. This only to put the word “deluge” in stark contrast to the flash floods fellow farmers in VT, MA and NY experienced this past week.

The first bites of tomatoes, the first arrival of raspberries, a cadre of summer crops joining what was an especially impressive (and well watered!) array of greens, shoots and herbs that sustained us in spring before harvest season came to full bloom.

In the past week, a few hundred miles away in Vermont, at many farms, the whole season’s crop was lost to flash floods, rivers bursting at the banks and fertile valley fields filled with crops flooded right as peak season hits. Roads impassable for dairy trucks and distributors. The list goes on. How easily this could have been Maine.

A ring of smoke from Canadian wildfires circled us in spring, a flood took our fellow farmers’ crop this July, there will likely be no stone fruit in Maine this year due to arctic blasts that disrupted the trees’ dormancy in February.

My mind goes back to the disbelief and grief of the winter before last when farming friends and neighbors in Maine were the first to learn of farmland PFAS contamination. (An issue that persists globally that Maine has been at the forefront of confronting head on.) Most (but not all) Maine farmers were able to pivot and make the necessary adjustments to their farms to ensure they were able to keep farming and provide PFAS-free foods moving forward. Equally resilient, I’m hopeful Vermont farmers will recover from this.

As we as a population collectively mistreat and misuse our planet, farmers that practice regenerative agriculture have dedicated their lives to not only feed us but also to mitigate the effects of the changing climate.

Farmers here and globally are at the frontlines of climate change and literally weathering the storm to ensure we are fed. They are feeling the effects of our collective misuse of our planet first. Their jobs have been hard. They will increasingly get harder.

I am deeply thankful to each of you who are supporting our farmers in all the ways you are, through thick and thin. Please consider doubling down on your efforts to support Maine farmers and food producers right now and ongoing. It’s looking like a solid harvest season but with variable weather becoming more common, it's more crucial than ever that our farmers can "make hay when the sun shines" and put away money for inevitable “rainy days” to come.

Greens Galore and Flower shares are in season and being delivered - don't miss out!

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www.DaybreakGrowersAlliance.com