CONTACT: Allison Rogers, Media Relations Coordinator

                 802.526.1835

                 allison.rogers@kingarthurflour.com

The Bakers at King Arthur Flour take on the Resurgence of Whole Grains and Forge a One-of-a-Kind Cookbook

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking will change the way every baker thinks about whole grains

October 2006 – Norwich, Vt. – In October 2006, King Arthur Flour, the nation’s oldest flour company and the most widely respected educator of home bakers in the U.S., will release its most ground-breaking and thoroughly tested cookbook yet with the release of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking (The Countryman Press, $35.00, Hardcover).

The release of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking rises amid the zeitgeist of a renewed interest and understanding of whole grains in the diets of Americans. On supermarket shelves, packaged food labels boast their whole grain content on everything
from pretzels, bread, chips and crackers to soup, cereal, cupcakes, and even dog and cat food. In the baking aisle, recent sales increases of whole wheat flour far outpace those of white flour. In fact, the number of available whole grain food products in 2005 nearly doubled those of 2004. This growth trend continues in 2006.

This whole grain trend has emerged thanks to a number of converging phenomena. The 2005 release of the revised U.S. Dietary Guidelines that recommend Americans eat 3 to 5 servings of whole grains per day. These guidelines are buoyed by recent studies that show how whole grains help reduce the risks of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Add to this the popularity of “good-carb” diets such as the South Beach Diet and The Sonoma Diet and a mainstream health trend emerges.

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking opens up the home baker’s repertoire to vast new resources—new flours, new flavors, new recipes and new categories of whole grain baked goods. It spills over with helpful tips, how-to illustrations, sidebars on history and lore, and a friendly voice that says to readers, “Come into the kitchen with me and let’s bake.”

Imagine delicious and moist sponge cakes, tortes, sticky buns, puff pastries, doughnuts, cookies, pancakes, muffins, flatbreads, brownies, tiramisu, carrot cakes, croissants and much more—all made with whole grains. King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking is a cookbook that only King Arthur Flour could successfully complete. Thousands of hours were spent testing these recipes, making sure each one met their high standards. The final result is more than 400 delicious, inviting, and foolproof recipes that have earned a place in King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking—the next generation whole grain cookbook.

King Arthur Flour is not only the nation’s oldest flour company, it is the single largest educator of home bakers in the world.

Founded in 1790 and employee-owned since 1996, the company conducts national baking class tours that provide free instruction

to thousands of bakers across the U.S., as well as instruction through its Baking Education Center in Vermont. In 2004, The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion won the James Beard Foundation’s coveted KitchenAid Cookbook of the Year award. In 2005, The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion was nominated for an IACP award. The company’s expertise has been featured in many national publications, including Food & Wine, The New York Times, and People. Its headquarters are in Norwich, Vermont.

A division of W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., The Countryman Press publishes books and guides that celebrate place, from regional travel and recreational guides to books on nature, cooking (and eating), crafts, history, photography and living. In addition to its award
nods for The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion and The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, Countryman has also received a James Beard nomination for The Essential EatingWell Cookbook (2005) and James Beard and IACP nominations for The EatingWell Diabetes Cookbook (2006). It parent company, W.W. Norton, is the largest independent, employee-owned book publisher in the U.S. The Countryman Press is headquartered in Woodstock, Vermont.