Buckwhat! Offers New Take
Visitors to the Springs Farmers Market this summer may have encountered a couple of new and smiling faces — the friendly couple at the Buckwhat! booth, selling a new line of tasty bars and noshes made with buckwheat, dates, and other healthy ingredients.
They are Leeann and Mark Rybakov, who live in Springs part-time just up the road from Ashawagh Hall.
Ms. Rybakov, a recent graduate of the International Culinary Center in SoHo, thought initially about being a chef, but ended up launching the Buckwhat! company along with her brother Edward Kartashevsky, who tends the business side of the equation.
Last spring she began developing the line of Buckwhat! products, which have no added sugar.
“We have been eating buckwheat our entire lives,” said Ms. Rybakov. She and her brother were born in Kiev. Her husband is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. All three came to the United States in 1989.
In Eastern Europe, Ms. Rybakov said, buckwheat, or kasha, is a ubiquitous and popular dish.
Buckwheat, Ms. Rybakov said, is an “incredible” food, dense with nutrition. Those going gluten-free should not be daunted by the word “wheat,” she said — it is not a type of wheat, nor related to wheat, but a plant whose seeds are eaten.
Buckwheat is high in fiber, protein, and elements such as zinc, copper, and potassium, and contains a resistant starch that helps promote colon health. It rates well on the glycemic index, a measure of how much a food raises blood glucose.
According to the Whole Grains Council, it has been eaten for 8,000 years, playing an important role in diets around the world, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, and was cultivated in the Balkans beginning around 4,000 B.C.
“We took it to a different level — as a seed in the bar, and we grind it down for the noshes,” Ms. Rybakov said. “I just started to experiment with it, and turned it into these little noshes.”
The noshes, small donut-hole sized balls, come in three flavors: cocoa, crunchy peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin. Nosh bars, a more substantial buckwheat square, are similar to the oatmeal raisin-style nosh — peanut butter and fruit-based versions will be added. The company also offers a granola, with cocoa and peanut butter flavors to come.
The products are made in Brooklyn, and Ms. Rybakov hopes they will be carried in stores there in the fall.
Since joining the vendors at the weekly Springs market this summer, Buckwhat! has engendered a great response, its founder said. “It’s like we acquired a new family.” A regular group of customers returns each week to stock up.
With their first baby due soon, the Rybakovs will spend their last summer Saturday at the farmers market this weekend, but hope to return in the fall.
In the meantime, Buckwhat! goodies may be mail-ordered by sending an email to [email protected]. A website through which orders may be placed is being developed.