We’re blessed in Santa Barbara to have great farmers markets, and one of the stars of the Saturday (downtown Santa Barbara) and Sunday (Camino Real Marketplace in Goleta) markets is bread-maker Roan Mills Grains.

Roan Mills sells a range of organic breads at these markets, including favorites like its Red Fife and Glen Boule, Kalamata Olive Boule and Sourdough Rye.

Made almost exclusively from grains they grow themselves, and baked in their own facility in Fillmore, Roan Grains also sells homemade pasta and, occasionally, cookies.

The Let’s Go Eat Team became fans when we tried the Spelt Boule. Bring home a loaf, slice and toast it, and the medley of seeds, cracked wheat, rye, honey and sea salt just sing. (Sandwich idea below.)

Behind the Roan Mills success is Andrea Crawford, big city-raised and self-taught farmer, who got her start in the 1980s when she became the go-to farmer for two celebrity chefs: Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck.

In the mid-1970s, the California Cuisine culinary movement evolved in the Bay Area, emphasizing fresh ingredients.

“I was very young, had come to California for college, and just graduated,” Crawford told us. “Working at Chez Panisse with chef Alice Waters was my first job.”

How’d she get into farming?

“Two girlfriends and I had started a little group garden in a friend’s backyard,” Crawford shared. “Alice was always coming by to raid our garden and finally one day she said, ‘Why don’t you bring what you grow down to the restaurant and I’ll buy it.’” 

Cue the lightbulb.

Around that time, Puck, who was setting up the southern outpost of the movement in Los Angeles, stopped in at Chez Panisse and noticed how fresh the greens and lettuce were.

“He knew Alice and had heard of me,” Crawford said, “and he wanted that for Spago in Beverly Hills.”

And Puck, with that Euro-charm, lured her and her family south.

“I vowed we would only stay six months, but we never left,” she recalled.

Being featured on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine helped keep her there.

“I got more than 20 letters from people offering to let me use their backyards to grow our produce,” she said. “They wanted to be part of it.

“Then the (Los Angeles) Department of Water & Power called, said they had this abandoned seven-acre orange grove under some power lines in Kenter Canyon (near Brentwood), did I want to lease it. They threw in free water, so I said yes,” she recalled.

This was in 1987, and her company, now called Kenter Canyon Farms, would eventually expand to farmland spread from Los Angeles to the Central Valley.

In 2010, being an avid baker, Crawford decided they needed to start growing their own wheat.

After a rough start involving a gang of terrorist squirrels, they finally gained traction at their facility in Hollister, harvesting in the first year more than 80,000 pounds of wheat.

“The question was, what are we going to do with it?” Crawford said.

The answer: Lease a bakery, hire a baker, and start baking bread.

“In 2013 we started selling at farmers markets in Los Angeles,” Crawford explained.

Today, Roan Mills is available at six different farmers markets in Southern California, plus its retail shop at 411 Central Ave. in Fillmore, where they sell bread, pastries, cookies, pizzas, fresh pastas, ground wheat, coffee and much more.

Where does Crawford find creative inspiration for all this?

“My husband is also a farmer,” she replied with a big smile. “He grows what he wants, and then I figure out what to do with it.”

At Team Let’s Go Eat Headquarters, we’ve figured out a few of our own ways to feature Roan Mills’ fine offerings.

One favorite: Toast two slices of the Spelt Boule, add roast beef, thin slices of red onion, Gorgonzola cheese, horseradish sauce and a dab of German mustard.

Just right.

And with each bite we salute not only Andrea Crawford, chief bread architect, but also that charming German guy whose taste in lettuce 40 years ago brought her to us.

Locals Only

The Roan Mills folks who operate the market stalls are quite charming as well, and many people come by just to see them. And try the Belgian chocolate chip cookies.

When You Go

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Roan Mills Grains can be found at the Santa Barbara Farmers Market , 119 E. Cota St., at the Cota Street entrance closest to Anacapa Street. 

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Roan Mills can be found at the Goleta Farmers Market at Camino Real Marketplace, 7004 Marketplace Drive, closest to the movie theater.