Join She Wolf Bakery Business Director Kim Vallejo and Director of Regional Food Program at Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming June Russell for an in-depth conversation on the past, present, and future of local grains. Vallejo and Russell will examine why local grains matter, explore the challenges of sourcing regional grains, and discuss how a new generation of bakers, millers, and growers is working collaboratively to rebuild a thriving grainshed and support producers at every scale. Enjoy a guided tasting of sourdough breads to understand how different grains and milling techniques influence flavor, texture, and aroma; and learn how you, too, can play a role in shaping a more resilient regional grain economy!

Join chef and mixologist Nelson German and culinary anthropologist and author Andréa Lawson Gray in conversation with Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food (& Drinks!) Griot, exploring rum, sugar, and the histories that shape Caribbean flavor. Drawing from their book Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora, they will examine how ingredients travel, how knowledge is passed, and how cultural expression takes form through food and drink.

Focusing on sugarcane as a foundational crop and rum as both an industrial product and cultural practice, the conversation will trace the movement of plants and people across the Caribbean and the African diaspora. Grounded in both scholarship and lived experience—including German’s Afro-Latino upbringing in New York’s Washington Heights—the discussion will consider how systems of trade, labor, and exchange continue to shape contemporary flavor.

Together, the speakers will introduce the concept of “Distillery Justice” as a framework for thinking about authorship, value, and cultural memory in food and beverage today.