Amy Halloran

The 10th Annual Eugene J. McCarthy Residency

Amy Halloran

March 19-22, 2017

Amy Halloran is the author of The New Bread Basket. She has been following the revival of the regional grain movement in the Northeast for several years. She writes about food and agriculture for farming newspapers, cooking websites, and regional magazines.

Her involvement in local food systems began with the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market in upstate New York, which bloomed under her care to a fifty-vendor year-round marketplace with more than a thousand weekly shoppers. She works with friends and neighbors to change the foodscape in her city, teaching classes in cooking, baking, and food justice, and volunteering at a youth-powered farm.

Her book, The New Bread Basket, How the New Crop of Grain Growers, Plant Breeders, Millers, Maltsters, Bakers, Brewers, and Local Food Activists Are Redefining Our Daily Loaf, explores the revival of the regional grain movement in the Northeast. The people profiled in The New Bread Basket return to traditional methods like sourdough fermentations that may address dietary ills attributed to grains such as wheat. Their work makes our foundational crops vital and visible again.

During her residency at CSB and SJU, Halloran engaged students through a variety of programming. She participated in a sourdough bread making class seminar, "New-Old Bread: Heritage Grains, Small Scale Milling, and Sourdough Baking" with Darrold and Marty Glanville of Sunrise Flour Mill, LLC., as well as joining students and faculty for pancakes with a discussions titled "Panckaes 101: Following Seeds from Pan to Griddle" 

For the keynote program, Halloran was joined by award winning Chef Paul Berglund for "Regional Foods from Producers to Tables."