Bram Yoffie’s truck sits outside his parents’ home on the west side of Worcester.  In February, he returned from an eighteen month wheat growing and bread baking immersion experience in a two hundred person village in France.  Now, he is hoisting his motorcycle on his truck and filling up the cab with stores of canned tuna fish and almonds for his upcoming 6000 mile journey cross country.  His goal is to reach the west coast, anywhere from northern California to Oregon, find a farmer who can grow wheat from polycultures, establish a stone grinding mill and then start baking fine loaves of artisanal bread.  His dream is simply to recreate the paradise of a bread culture he found in France. Along the way, he plans to meet farmers, millers and bakers to share the vision of farm-to-table natural bread. We were lucky to catch him before he left.

There is no better way to initiate a series of “WooVoices” than to hear the wise words of a Zen master.  Ordained as a Soto Zen priest,  Melissa reminds us that “what we have here is what we get to work with” in this present moment and that we can cultivate a true appreciation of the Worcester we live in right now, not the Worcester we wish it to be.  She and her husband, David Dae An Rynick, Roshi are resident teachers at the Boundless Way Temple on Pleasant Street.