My friend Sibylla gave me the perfect gift — a cookbook about baking artisan bread. It turned out to be much more than a collection of recipes. It’s an ode to bread! After Garlic and Sapphires this is the first cookbook that I read with such pleasure. Mr. Forkish renders the thrills of baking bread vividly and with love –the tactile nature of the work, the magic of the rising dough, the smell of the levain, the simple elegance of the cinnamon-brown pain de campagne and the fantastic aroma of freshly-baked bread in the morning…
Have you ever thought of what a bread-tasting event would be like? Mr. Forkish offers this experience in his bakery.
The book also perpetuates the glory of the life-style change myth – a man’s dream of leaving everything behind and becoming a baker, or a wine-maker, or a restaurateur, or whatever… The author was adventurous enough to make that leap of faith himself. After 20 years in the IT business he started his own bakery in Portland. A very successful one at that!
Ah, the romance of waking up at 4 AM to bake bread….
No lipstick! Book & Film Reviews 