Fred Schulz, left, and volunteer Hadley Meldrum grind grain into flour and fill bags for visitors to take at the Cedar Creek Grist Mill's Bread and Butter Day on Saturday. (Photos by Greg Wahl-Stephens/ for the Columbian)Photo Gallery
WOODLAND — It was Bread and Butter Day on Saturday at Cedar Creek Grist Mill, but the aroma outside the mill was more like a freshly cooked doughnut than a loaf of bread.
That’s where Kurt Friedmann, a volunteer at the mill for about 10 to 12 years, was cooking up fry bread. Using dough made with wheat flour from the mill, volunteers rolled it out — first by hand until someone brought a rolling pin — and then dropped the dough into oil heated to 350 degrees. Friedmann made sure the bunched up, palm-size flat pieces of dough separated, puffed up and cooked until they were golden brown on both sides. He then scooped each piece out of the oil and coated it in cinnamon sugar.
It was arguably the most popular station at Bread and Butter Day, with kids anxiously watching the bread cook until it was time to chow down. Other stations showed kids how grain is turned into flour and how butter is made.
“For some kids, it’s their first time seeing how bread is made,” Friedmann said. “It’d be like showing them a cow and saying that’s where we get burgers from.”
Aaron Fulbright, 3, of Vancouver liked watching all the wheels and gears inside the mill turn, but his favorite thing on Saturday was the fry bread, he said while scarfing down another bite of his second piece.
Daria Shamrai, 9, of Vancouver said she liked watching as the bread was lowered into the cooker and immediately started expanding.
Daniel Ishchuk, 12, of Vancouver liked something else about the fry bread.
“It tasted really good,” he said.
The fry bread station was just one part of Bread and Butter Day. Fred Shulz, who has been volunteering since the mill was restored in the early 1980s, and other volunteers worked a Buhr mill machine that ground grains into flour. The machine is powered from Cedar Creek below the mill.
Bags of flour were given away for free. The event itself was free, as are all of the mill’s special events. Bread and Butter Day was the first special event of the year, and the mill hosts events the last Saturday of every month through October.
The mill is operated by all volunteers, who enjoy the special events just as much as the guests.
“It’s fun. It’s something mechanical, not computer controlled,” said Friedmann of Vancouver. “It works like it did in the older days.”
Friedmann said the kids are split between those who are interested in seeing how bread is made and those who just want a snack with no leaning attached.
Plenty of kids enjoyed the butter-making station on Saturday, where they got a chance to use a churn to turn heavy cream into butter
“They love it,” said Ariel Valencia, special events coordinator at the mill. “The like to try and go as fast as they can.”
