Bob's Redmill, Part 2

Today, we went on a homeschool field trip to Bob's Redmill. Most people have at least one item in their pantry that has come from this iconic mill.

For our family, we have many, many, many items, some of which I have no idea how to use.

I'm a spontaneous shopper.

The good news however, at Bob's, every single grain, bean, lentil or flour has a purpose. And crib notes for us emotional buyers.

I grabbed a whole pile.

And a cookbook.

Bob's Redmill is located in Milwaukie, Oregon. It should've taken us 1 hour to get there. That was including time spent in traffic. We left our home at 10 am. We arrived at the mill at 1:12 pm. We did print off directions/map from a very well known online map site. They were wrong. Thankfully, my Mister isn't too much of a man to not ask for directions. He got some very detailed directions.

From a non-English speaking Russian.

I'm not sure that even the Russian knew where he was. Nice man though. I think. He could've been cursing at us and we wouldn't have known. I'll choose to believe that he was being helpful.

We took off again and my Mister spied a taxi-cab sitting in a parking lot. Taxi drivers know everything, right?

He was a non-English speaking Hispanic man who did a lot of pointing.

My Mister acted like he understood, then proceeded to drive down the road and pull over before asking me for my cell phone.

Which he used to call Bob's Redmill.

Genius.

Here's some highlights of our day....

Wish I had one of these in my yard. The wheel, not the kids. They're already there.





Proof that we were there, just in case we didn't make it home.





This is only a partial view of the store. I was standing upstairs in the cafe seating area and a lady was in my way. She was eating, so I forgave her.

The upstairs cafe area used to be for antique equipment on display. Then the mill got busy. People wanted to try their flours in bread form before they bought it. While we were there, it was packed.

Word of warning. Never go in on an empty stomach. Of course, our tummys wouldn't have been empty if we would've arrived at the mill in a reasonable amount of time. I'm just sayin'.

This is Bob. The Bob. He is a nice man. My family met him while I was visiting the ladies room, ridding myself of a 20 oz. latte that spent 2 hours too long in my body.

Figures.

Bob recently gave his company away to his employees. That's how nice he is. I want him to adopt me.

This is our bounty that we managed to squeeze into the car with us. It looks like we're preparing for Y2K.

Again.

I'm a huge fan of molasses. Especially the tropical kind. From Barbados. At our local health food store, I pay around $6 for a pint. This gallon jug was only $13. Seriously.

Now I know what to do with all those grains, flours, lentils and beans.

I didn't have a gluten-free lunch today, and felt it in my fingers almost immediately. Which inspired me to keep going on this gluten-free journey.

Bob understands.

I usually make my own granola. Sometimes though, I forget and have to rely on whatever we have laying around.

Thank you Bob for making my weekends a little easier. This ended up costing us less than $2/lb.

The organic products cost a little extra, but all of it was pretty reasonable. For a family that consumes as much oatmeal as ours, this was a good find too.

While I grind my own wheat berries, which Bob's Redmill carries (!!!), I need white flour for sourdough. I can't seem to make whole wheat work and until that happens, I'll rely on Bob.

These are French lentils. From France. I got crib notes for these too. Aren't they pretty?

Thank you Bob for allowing us to visit your red mill. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously and are already planning a return trip next month.

And every month thereafter.