Weekends with Yankee

NARRATOR: Today on Weekends With Yankee, Richard is in Shaftsbury, Vermont, to see all the hard work... - Here you go, girls.

NARRATOR: ...and rewards of turning fleece into one-of-a-kind yarn.

RICHARD WIESE: These are beautiful.

NARRATOR: Next, Amy meets up with baker Ahmad Aissa... TRAVERSO: Nice to meet you.

NARRATOR: ...who has turned family recipes from Syria into a thriving business in Concord, New Hampshire.

And see how one group has revitalized a local economy through grains farmed and milled in Maine.

- We've revived an industry; we've made it possible to support grain farms and eat the delicious products that come from it.

NARRATOR: So come along with us for a once-in-a-lifetime journey through New England as you've never experienced it before, a true insiders' guide from the editors of Yankee magazine.

Join explorer and adventurer Richard Wiese and Yankee senior food editor Amy Traverso for behind-the-scenes access to the unique attractions that define this region.

It's the ultimate travel guide from the people who know it best.

Weekends with Yankee.

– Major funding provided by: ♪ ♪ - Massachusetts is home to a lot of firsts.

The first public park in America.

The first fried clams.

The first university in America.

The first basketball game.

What's first for you?

♪ ♪ - Grady-White-- crafting offshore sport fishing boats for over 60 years.

- Country Carpenters-- handcrafted barns and homes for over 50 years.

- On an American Cruise Lines journey, you can explore historic New England.

- New Smyrna Beach, Florida-- sandy beaches and laid back adventure.

Relax already.

(rooster crowing) WIESE: We're in Shaftsbury, Vermont.

Traditionally, this was farmland, sheep and wool.

(sheep bleating) Many of the large farms have now disappeared, but we're now going to Wing and a Prayer, and this represents an artisanal farm, a small production that is really farm-to-fashion.

♪ ♪ - Who's hungry?

(hay rustling) WIESE: Good morning.

- Hey, good morning.

WIESE: Hi Tammy, how are you?

- I'm well, how are you?

WIESE: Looks like it's breakfast here.

- Yeah, do you want to feed?

WIESE: Yeah, it's not always I get to see such beautiful alpacas.

- And then there's also a cashmere goat in there, Christopher Robin.

If you toss it that way, he'd love some.

Give everybody space, because they don't always want to eat from the same pile.

Here comes Fluffhead and Layla.

WIESE: They seem very gentle.

- Oh, they're super sweet and very gentle.

I've had alpacas since... 2010, I think.

They've come to me as rescues; they all have very, very distinctive personalities, very sweet.

They're excellent fiber producers, they have amazing alpaca fiber that we use, so soft.

WIESE: When you say rescues, are there that many alpaca in Vermont that are abandoned?

- So, when we use the term "rescue," we mean a place for them to come to.

There was like, an alpaca craze, and then there's been a llama craze.

Everybody wanted to have alpacas or be an alpaca farmer and so there was an overpopulation of these beautiful animals that people learn about what kind of a commitment it is, and they don't necessarily want to be in it for 15 years, so they need homes because their people want to have another lifestyle.

WIESE: You're like the female St. Francis of Assisi.

- Well, I would be flattered to be thought of in those ways, but I think that most farmers like myself, like, we all do what we can to help our animals.

♪ ♪ WIESE: It sounds like there's quite a few animals to feed here.

- We have a lot of mouths to feed.

We need to toss the geese some grain.

Char, my daughter, she's going to take care of the goats and the chickens while we go ahead over and see the sheep.

WIESE: So when did you come to Vermont and become a farmer?

- In 1986, at this place, a dozen acres at the time and mostly flat and clear.

When my kids were little, they did all the research and we decided to get some sheep, and we learned about sheep from books because we didn't have the internet yet.

And then we went around to different farms in Vermont for about a year.

We ended up choosing Shetland sheep, came home with our first three sheep in 2001.

In 2010, my kids were off to college, so instead of downsizing when my kids grew up, I upsized.

And so then I turned it from a hobby farm into a production farm.

We started with Shetlands, but we also have Valais Blacknose and Cormo, and on the farm, I have nine breeds, altogether, of sheep.

Let's feed them.

(sheep braying) Here you go, girls.

(sheep bleating) (bleating) WIESE: Why do you have so many varieties?

- Some animals have come via rescue situations, and that's how we first started to sort of diversify our, our sheep breeds, and now over the years, I'm really grateful that we have such diversity.

It's better for the planet and we're protecting rare and heritage breeds by being open to having different types of breeds of sheep here.

The length of the wool, the crimp, the different breeds, they all have like different fleece and different properties.

WIESE: You know, this looks idyllic.

It's a beautiful fall day, but I mean, there must be life-and-death situations that you're running to on a fairly regular basis.

- There are.

For example, when Jubilee was born, we had a lot of complications.

Her mom had been inseminated, we thought she was carrying two.

It turned out she was carrying five lambs.

WIESE: Five.

And so, were there problems with the birth or with her being able to get milk or any of those things?

- Yeah, every problem.

WIESE: Well, she doesn't look like she has a problem now, she's big.

- We nursed her, and now I always say she's a bounder.

She's really thriving.

WIESE: When you have stories like that, that's such a personal connection, the sacrifice you went through, and Jubilee looks like this beautiful, magnificent sheep, but yet you have this personal connection to her because you saw her as this little baby.

- I just think that in life when you give to somebody, because it is your nature just to do that, you don't do it because you expect anything back, right?

WIESE: Right.

- Would you like to go to the barn and see Char shear?

WIESE: Okay, let's do it.

- Let's do it.

♪ ♪ (blade shearing) - (softly): Yeah.

WIESE: Okay.

- (softly): Yeah.

WIESE: I see a lot of wool.

(door sliding closed) - Hey, Char.

- Hi.

- I'm going to introduce Richard to you.

WIESE: Hi, Char.

- Hi, Richard.

WIESE: So you are the shearer?

- Yeah.

WIESE: Wow.

- We are just about done with Gwen here.

She's a Swiss Valais Blacknose, not even a year old yet.

WIESE: So, has she been sheared before?

- This is her first time getting sheared.

She is doing really well.

WIESE: And this just feels... you know, wonderful.

And so what will this be made into?

- With Gwen's wool, we'll probably make a woven fabric that then gets fulled for blankets.

And we go to sheep and wool events, and we have booths where we sell them and we have an online shop where we also sell the products.

♪ ♪ Usually we make yarn with all of our wool.

WIESE: These are all beautiful, so how did they become this color?

- Sometimes we retain all of the same colored fleeces to come together.

For example, all of the Cormo sheep's fleece is this color naturally, so then we can dye it if we want to, using dyes that we grow in our dye garden over here.

WIESE: From flowers?

- From the flowers, from roots, from bark, from the stem, the leaves.

WIESE: This is old school.

- Oh, yeah.

♪ ♪ We grow quite a variety.

I grow color-- you know, blue from the woad, indigo, I grow yellow from marigolds, reds from the madder roots and the amaranthus.

♪ ♪ So now I'm just going to add these flowers.

We're going to add the yarn, and then I'm going to add heat and we'll let it simmer all together overnight, turn off the heat after 45 minutes or so, and tomorrow morning, I'll pull it out.

It's going to have some really beautiful rich gold color.

WIESE: When you think of dyes, it sort of is in that area of "they do it somehow," but when you actually see flowers that you just picked and wool from the sheep you knew, the process becomes so much more personalized.

- There's a real connection.

It's a connection to my flock and to the earth and to the future.

I'm making a commitment to the next generations that I'm going to try to be the best steward I can, so that you guys will have a good life here on, you know, this green planet.

♪ ♪ WIESE: These are beautiful.

- Every stitch is meaningful, every color is meaningful.

A woman named Sarah Barca in Ohio designed this shawl, which she called, "From Wool, With Love."

And she's using three different kinds of yarns from our farm that I've dyed with marigolds and some of natural undyed.

So, it's, it's just fun to see this show up in my, the mail, and say, "Oh my gosh, this is... you know, this is part of my flock."

WIESE: I mean, it must be so satisfying.

- It's like a member of the family.

WIESE: Each one of these sweaters not only has a breed or a color that you've dyed from a plant that you've selected, but it has a lineage, too.

So, to me, it's sending out more than a sweater from Wing and a Prayer.

For me personally, coming here, it's such a good feeling to know that people like you exist here in New England.

- Thank you.

♪ ♪ TRAVERSO: This is a story about finding home in unexpected places.

In 2012, the Syrian civil war forced Ahmad Aissa and his wife, Evelyn, to flee to the United States, a country he'd never been to.

They settled in Evelyn's home state of New Hampshire, and there, a homesick Ahmad began baking the sweets he'd loved as a child.

That soon became a business, which has now expanded all over New England.

So today, I'm going to be meeting up with Ahmad to hear his stories and bake some of his delicious recipes.

Hi, Ahmad.

- Hi.

TRAVERSO: It's so nice to meet you.

- Nice to-- good to see you, too.

TRAVERSO: Well, it looks like I might need to put on some protective gear.

- Yes, I got something ready for you.

TRAVERSO: Okay, great.

And a little Laverne and Shirley moment with the hair net.

Okay, great.

(laughs) - Walk with me.

TRAVERSO: All right, so, take me to the baklava station.

- So, that's where the phyllo dough... TRAVERSO: Okay.

- ...processing spot.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- And that's the first step to kind of, you know, get started.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

Ooh, I see some beautiful dough.

- Yeah, so, we're going to dust the dough... and go for it.

TRAVERSO: So, I imagine this is sort of like a giant pasta machine, where you can make the rollers closer and closer together to get it thinner?

- Correct.

TRAVERSO: Ah, look at that.

Now, is this something you watched at home?

- We did it by hand.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- And it was really intensive to do it by hand, but it was a lot of fun, so like, rewarding.

TRAVERSO: There's still a certain amount of hand work to this, even though you're using a machine.

- Oh yeah, phyllo dough is a very intensive labor product, it's not easy.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

Miles of phyllo now.

- So it is not-- not very thin at this point.

- TRAVERSO (laughing): Really?

- But it does get much thinner.

- TRAVERSO (laughing): Looks thin to me.

- You really want to go and make it as thin as possible, and that what makes the crunch better and everything better.

TRAVERSO: It's incredible, the elasticity of this dough.

- And this is why it's difficult to make gluten-free baklava.

TRAVERSO: Yes.

- (chuckles) - TRAVERSO (chuckling): Yes, you really need those rubber bands, those gluten rubber bands.

- And then, basically, you can see, like, it's really, like, very thin.

TRAVERSO: This is extraordinary, and I am now so curious to see how you turn this into the layered dessert of baklava.

Hello.

- Hi guys.

So, this is Pamela.

TRAVERSO: Hi.

- And this is Sam.

TRAVERSO: Nice to meet you.

- This is my awesome team.

(Traverso laughs) And so, in this station here, we get the cut phyllo... TRAVERSO: Uh-huh.

- And we, we top it with cocoa powder... TRAVERSO: Uh-huh.

- And walnut... TRAVERSO: Uh-huh.

- And chocolate chips.

TRAVERSO: Mm.

- And then we layer it on the top, and then we take it to cutting and then baking next.

TRAVERSO: Okay, well, watching how beautiful the process is now, I'm very eager to try the final product.

- Awesome.

And I have some ready.

TRAVERSO: Oh, I can't wait to try these.

This looks beautiful.

- Enjoy.

- TRAVERSO (chuckling): I imagine you eat enough of these day-to-day, huh?

(crunching) - I do a lot of, uh, product testing.

TRAVERSO: Mmm.

Oh my goodness, it's not too sweet and it has this really rich chocolate walnut, mm.

So, I hear we're going to do a little baking lesson at your house now?

- Yes, looking forward to it.

TRAVERSO: All right, let's go do that.

- Awesome.

♪ ♪ TRAVERSO: So what are we going to be making?

- We'll be making mamoul cookies, TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

- So those cookies are traditional to the Middle East.

They're made in the holiday celebrations, and it makes an actually wonderful snack.

TRAVERSO: I have to say, this does not look like an intimidating list of ingredients.

I mean, there's five ingredients.

- Yeah, it's very basic, and then the filling is just dried, dried fruit paste.

We're doing dates, yeah.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

So... okay, so how do we make the pastry that surrounds it?

- So that's what we're going to start with.

We grab the butter, we toss it in.

We'll add the sugar, about three ounces, and then the last thing you add is flour.

♪ ♪ So the next process is basically just portioning the dough.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- Into little tiny miniature balls.

TRAVERSO: Walnut size?

- Yeah, something like this, almost like an inch diameter.

TRAVERSO: Is that okay?

- Yeah, perfect.

Now we're moving to the filling.

You can flavor it, I prefer the orange blossom water.

TRAVERSO: Uh-huh.

- In the spring, if you walk around Damascus, they have the lemon trees in the house garden, and that's what you smell a lot around the city, sometimes, evening particularly, like the breeze comes out and it's like so aromatic.

So, yeah, it's easy to squish, it's not really sticky once you have the liquid on it.

TRAVERSO: Right.

Oh, that's interesting.

- So the next step, basically, into kind of creating little, slightly smaller balls of the dates for each one of those.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

I'm being slow.

You're a little faster than I am.

- That's me, I'm so used to it.

TRAVERSO: You're experienced.

- It's like autopilot.

(chuckling) We'll bring the dusting plate.

TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

- We'll grab one of those guys.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- We'll put them here, give it a squish.

And, and we try at this point to work it less, because that's where it gets too melty.

TRAVERSO: Oh, because the butter.

Right, the butter will melt.

- Yeah.

And then dust it from the sides, knock, knock, put it in here, give it a squish.

TRAVERSO: Gosh, that's so cool.

- And then, it comes out.

TRAVERSO: (gasps) Wow.

That's really gorgeous.

Yay, so pretty.

I love it.

- Awesome.

TRAVERSO: What's your earliest memory of making these cookies?

This is actually the first thing I helped my mom with.

TRAVERSO: Really?

- Yep.

So I would be shaping those little balls of the fruit, and I'd get so proud of it.

So these go to the oven for 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- And that's it.

TRAVERSO: Great.

♪ ♪ Oh, these look great.

Mmm, mmm, they're so tender.

I think some people grew up eating Fig Newtons, these are so much better.

(laughs) I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you met.

So you grew up in New Hampshire.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: But you really just fell in love with Syria and were prepared to live there indefinitely?

- Yeah, just a wonderful place, loved the people that I met, felt very at home there, and I had met this guy.

So... (laughs) TRAVERSO: Now, Ahmad, in Syria, you were not baking at all.

- No, it was a really nice hobby that I enjoyed so much.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- Yes.

I think growing up, my mom was the person who kind of, you know, imprinted a lot into my personality.

She was a really a strong woman, but also she had, like, beautiful cooking skills.

TRAVERSO: Mmm.

- And that's...

I think had a more, like, positive impact on my desire to kind of dive into the food world, even though it wasn't my, my profession.

TRAVERSO: And so when did you realize that your lives were changing beyond your control?

- So the revolution in Syria started in March, and... this would've been in 2011.

Not long after that, the U.S. embassy was attacked and closed down for a month.

We knew that we needed to leave.

- I never thought I would be at the other side of the world in, in... with the possibility, maybe, not coming back any... anytime soon.

TRAVERSO: I remember reading recently that, and I think anyone who has, you know, immigration in their family history could relate to this, that recipes are something you can always bring with you.

They take no space in your suitcase, you know... but yet they are so powerfully able to connect you to home.

So how, how quickly did your thoughts turn to, "I need to make a life for myself here and the food is going to be the way I do that?"

- When I first came, first of all, I thought, "Okay, I need to create a path for a career."

And, of course, in terms of the nostalgia, in terms of the, the emotional kind of connection, that's, that's kind of kept me going in a way, because I kept trying recipes and tried to kind of simulate things to what we used to do.

And I realized this is something, this is a nice piece of my culture that I can bring it, bring onboard and present it in this, you know, this country.

Considering the kind of, the news were really negative, I thought this is a positive thing to go for.

So that was a motive for me to get started with, you know, thinking about how to start a food business.

TRAVERSO: After you've been here for nine years, do you feel that this has become home as well?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

I feel like this is my home and I... and this is, this is part of also where I think it's always better to look forward.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- So I'm looking always forward.

This is, this is where I belong now.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- Yeah, and I have my daughter here, wife, and this is, this is all I wanted.

TRAVERSO: Yeah.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: I think these are exactly the stories we need to hear right now.

- Certainly.

TRAVERSO: And also, I mean, these are so delicious, these treats are such a delight.

And we are eating better because you took this chance to come here, so I thank you for that.

- Thank you, thank you so much.

♪ ♪ - Skowhegan is in the center of the state of Maine, right on the Kennebec River, a beautiful river for recreation and fishing.

We're a small downtown of about 8,000 people.

We make flour here, and we're an industrious people.

- There's increasingly a great food scene that's here.

You can sit out on the patios and enjoy food that is being made and sourced locally to Skowhegan.

It's also a town that has been impacted, as many have across Maine, with the closure of important businesses and industries.

- Skowhegan last saw an abundance of wheat production in the mid-1800s.

We grew a lot of wheat back when we were planting by hand and harvesting by horse.

As wheat production migrated west, we started growing less and less of our own grain here.

- Maine Grain Alliance is a nonprofit organization that is comprised of farmers, millers, bakers, maltsters, seed researchers, all with the shared vision and mission to inspire and empower people who are building local grain economies.

- Farmers markets and local food was on the rise, but bread bakers didn't have their primary ingredient grown here in Maine.

That led a grassroots group of us to pull together for the first Kneading Conference in 2007, K-N-E-A-D. And together we wanted to explore, could we revive a local grain economy in Maine?

- My wife and I moved here in the 1970s, all part of that back-to-the-land movement that was going on at that time.

We went and bought this parcel of property together.

So it's a land trust.

My wife calls it our little green acre of paradise.

(tractor thrashing) The Maine Grain Alliance has the Heritage Seed Restoration Project, and really it isn't really so much as restoring these older varieties, it's finding the varieties that like this climate that we could grow out and then make commercially available.

People are trying to save those old heirloom tomatoes and everything like that and it's the same with grain.

I've met people from around the world and this struggle is going on all over the place.

You know, in the Middle East, in Spain, in Italy, trying to keep those old varieties.

♪ ♪ Why did they stop growing this stuff?

And so that's what we're trying to find out.

♪ ♪ It's really fascinating to do this kind of work because just you think to yourself, maybe this is really going to make a difference on trying to bring some of these old varieties back again, or at least save them from extinction.

- We have small farms in Maine, but we want to keep grain growing on those farms for all of the benefits they bring to the farm, the food, and the feed cycle here.

What we had to figure out, we learned, was how to process that grain into food-grade grain and flour for people to eat.

Maine Grains is a mill here in downtown Skowhegan that my business partner and I started in 2012, and the mill solves the need for infrastructure in the state of Maine to clean and process grains into food.

We're milling on old-fashioned Austrian stone mills, new equipment, but we are milling fresh to order, so there is nothing like the fresh flavor of freshly milled grain.

Maine Grains serves brewers, bakers, chefs, and home cooks from, we say, Maine to New York City and a little bit beyond.

- Part of the movement in Skowhegan is to grow the grain economy, and that started with growing grain, milling grain, and for us, the end user, baking.

I'm the owner of the Bankery and Skowhegan Fleuriste in Skowhegan, Maine.

The Bankery is nestled in the historic district of Skowhegan, and it's in an old 1864 bank building.

We were excited to participate with Maine Grains to incorporate more local grain.

It's more nutritious, there's less of a process that happens, it's fresher.

Our customers get better products, and they taste better.

- We've revived an industry, we've made it possible to support grain farms and eat the delicious products that come from it-- everything from sourdough bread to cookies and pies, and you name it-- and good beer.

- The power of food is unbelievable.

Seeing from 2007 to now how incredibly bright the future of Skowhegan is as a result of the food businesses that have taken root here.

It's a really special thing that I think this community can be extremely proud of.

NARRATOR: For exclusive videos, recipes, travel ideas, tips from the editors and access to the Weekends with Yankee digital magazine, go to weekendswithyankee.com, and follow us on social media, @yankeemagazine.

Yankee magazine, the inspiration for the television series, provides recipes, feature articles, and the best of New England from the people who know it best.

One year for $20.

Call 1-800-221-8154. Credit cards accepted.

Major funding provided by: ♪ ♪ - Massachusetts is home to a lot of firsts.

The first public park in America.

The first fried clams.

The first university in America.

The first basketball game.

What's first for you?

♪ ♪ - Grady-White-- crafting offshore sport fishing boats for over 60 years.

- Country Carpenters-- handcrafted barns and homes for over 50 years.

- On an American Cruise Lines journey, you can explore historic New England.

- New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

17 miles of beach.

Relax already.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪