In Test Kitchen for Change, TKFC, I use bread-making as a platform for engaging communities. Based on Slow Design principles, TKFC includes live instructions-performances and educational materials.

In the past few months, TKFC staged events in churches, galleries, communal gardens, corporate offices, private homes, markets and the juvenile detention facility. At this events, public is invited to make bread and learn how someone can engage in slow processes while living fast and busy lives.

The Bread Zoo is a collection of containers and tools collected, borrowed, and made in order to educate people about bread, yeast, malt, and wild foods.

In our ever-accelerating world, many feel that quality of live diminishes as we lack time to savor things that are important. One of the major areas that are compromised by our tense life style is our relationship with food. Of all things that become fast, food seems to be the most basic, most missed, and one of the most impacted. Almost weekly, we learn terrible news about toxic ingredients discovered in all sorts of processed foods, including school lunches, canned goods, and bread. Food is probably the most important part of our life and culture. What and how we eat affects our health, ecology, and policy. The goal of my design research is to introduce some of the slow and quality experiences of food-making back into our fast lives.

I set out to make something that can satisfy human need for creating and making things. TKFC project is not only about bread-making, it is also about creating community, sharing knowledge, allowing different tempos to exist in our lives, becoming self-sufficient, reviving old traditional crafts, connecting to nature and regaining control over the food system.

This project is about wild yeast, malt, salt, flour, foraged ingredients, communal cooking, food sharing, and fermented foods.

And finally, it is an attempt to apply the tools and knowledge of the design practice to facilitate healthier relationship between humans and nature.

We often critique products and systems, highlighting the obvious flaws in the entire lifecycle of the product. As a practicing industrial designer, I played a role in many projects where objects were produced, shipped long distances, used, and disposed. This time I set out to investigate the possibility of socially and environmentally responsible, minimal, healthy, and beautiful in every aspect design scenario.

For this self-directed thesis project, initially, I investigated many alternative food systems. I chose bread-making not only because of the additional challenge to contribute something new to the several-thousand-years-old topic, but also, I found it is very pleasant to research and experiment with. As a busy mom of three, a wife, a designer,? a teacher, and a graduate student, I was looking for ways to multi-task. Perhaps nothing summarizes this attempt better than feeding my family and friends nutritious and delicious bread while researching and developing my thesis project: 700+ loaves, all happily consumed.

Initially I investigated non-traditional food services, such as a mobile kneading service or a community-supported bakery. However, in order to make an impact on a particular community, I started to conduct small educational hands-on events. Small-group bread-making classes can be conducted without a special kitchen space, large equipment, or health department permits. Events can evolve depending on the audience. By providing the main ingredients—flour, special yeast culture, and live instructions—I can inspire people to use what they already have to make bread. As far as researching the craft portion of this, I reached out to the experts, Atwaters Bakery, a well-known local artisanal bread-maker. They let me work in their commercial bakery. By kneading the dough, I learned to understand how it should feel and behave. I understood that to engage people in the process of making bread, I needed to design my program to provide hands-on experience.

At the first bread-making event, I used a commercial kitchen to mix enough dough for over 50 loaves of bread. I transported the container with rising dough to another location where participants shaped the loaves. Visitors enjoyed tasting fresh bread and learning about bread-making techniques and tools. Special containers of the live starter culture were distributed to people at the event. Bread recipes, videos, web resources, and personal support by e-mail were parts of the overall TKFC activities. The next morning, participants came to pick up their loaves. I donated the surplus of bread to the church for their charity events and services. Participants expressed interest to learn the entire process, not just shaping.

Second event was advertised as a “bring your own mixing bowl” event and was conducted in collaboration with a local co-operative garden and held at another church. It attracted many people from the community. Participants added seeds, greens, and spices when they were mixing their own bread. It was wonderful to see a diverse group of mixing bowls holding rising dough covered with kitchen towels all sitting on a “rest” station. People mixed the dough and took their creations home to rise and bake.

Meeting people at the events and teaching them about bread taught me that people are very eager to learn and try new things. Being a designer, I jumped at the opportunity to curate and design a collection of objects to explore at the event. I collected, borrowed, and made containers and tools in order to educate people about bread, yeast, malt, wheat sprouting, and wild foods. I named my collection the Bread Zoo; the objects, along with books, videos and jars of sprouted grains, comprised a small bread museum. People learned that sprouted grains are called malted and can be dried and milled into flours. The seeds of the common plantain, wild buckwheat, and roasted roots of the chicory and dandelion plants were just a few wild ingredients that can easily be integrated into the bread. My project evolved with every event, making it suitable for a particular audience and location.

This project is an opportunity to use my design skills, such as making, problem-solving, and communicating, to tackle a new situation— introducing slow process into fast lives. I was inspired by the Slow Design movement, which advocates careful design in order to improve human experiences. Designing experiences, not artifacts, was a big shift in my design thinking. Paraphrasing John Thackara, I tried to “design people in, not out of the system”.

I am teaching a simple process of sourdough bread-making, for busy people. It is very forgiving and can be modified to fit individual’s schedule. It consists of short tasks performed between longer stretches of time during which fermentation happens. The main goal of the workshops is to engage participants in hands-on experience of crafting a loaf of bread, feeding sourdough starter and learning specific techniques. Also, I engage my audience in the deeper discussion of design for slowing down and how it relates to health (both of individuals, community and the planet).

“Thank you for doing this! What a wonderful way to bring people together!” These words were written on a note handed to me by a gentleman in a black apron, dusted with flour. He was beaming. The paper for the note was torn from an old leaflet at the historic Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore. This church was where the second bread-making event for the TKFC took place. I have kept this note. It makes me happy to think that my efforts can make some difference.

People of many ethnic backgrounds participated in TKFC events and most of them started their introduction like this: “ my mother used to make … bread, and I always wanted to learn, but…”

I grew up in the Ukraine and never thought much about bread. It was there daily, fresh at the bakery: dark round loaves of rye and bricks of whole wheat Borodincky, peppered with cracked coriander seeds. As a new immigrant to, the quality of bread was not my top priority. But being reminded of good old taste, after returning home from a trip to Germany, I decided to recreate a loaf of pungent Dark Ukrainian Rye.

First, I found out that the main ingredient of the authentic bread is sourdough starter, something that was a mystery to me. Soon I learned how to capture the starter from the air in ?Owings Mills, MD—my new home. This home-grown starter consists of many yeast cultures and is different from the mono-culture, commercial, factory-made yeast. The starter turned out to be easy to maintain and share.

The most popular bread at TKFC events is Dark Ukrainian Rye of my own recipe. It calls for roasted wild chicory roots — a common weed and health supplement. Every corner of the world has its own specialty bread. TKFC can also become a platform for cultural exchange of bread traditions. If the first thing people learn about the Ukraine is a taste of Dark Rye bread, it will be a pretty good experience.

Bread is a staple food that unfortunately became unhealthy when it became mass-produced. Eating cheap, processed bread introduces extra sugar, salt, and additives into consumer’s body. Not mentioning, unknown health effects of genetically modified grains, bleached flours and commercial yeast products made at the factory.

The sourdough bread tastes better and is proven to be healthier because it does not need artificial preservatives, and extra salt. The reach taste of sourdough is acquired by a slower fermentation process and is hard to achieve at the huge bakery plant. Many communities support local artisanal bakers and organic grain growers that provide access to wholesome bread. I believe that as people demand better quality of food, we will all have more choices. But until we all have a system of small local bakeries, bread-making at home can be an option. Naturally, a home baker can achieve a better control of bread’s ingredients, making the product more suitable for his/her family.

Participants of TKFC events see different examples of grown and wild foods incorporated in bread. Broccoli greens, chives, winter cress, common plantain seeds and greens, to name just a few of edible and seasonal greens I have added to the bread for health reasons.

In addition to the sourdough bread, lacto fermentation of vegetables and wild foods is very assessable process. Luckily, this process also makes foods more nutritious.