How the Dummies are Coming and a Surprise

The dummies for my new stories are coming along well.  I have three finished and am working on my fourth. The better ones seem to be rising to the surface.  It is a lot of fun to be back in the studio again after taking a few months away to tend to other matters.

Now for a SURPRISE BOOK review that has very little to do with the theme of this blog.  It is actually a description of three solid bread books that I have been using recently.

Local Breads by Daniel Leader was given to me and revived my interest in baking bread at home and after reading through it greatly improved my good loaf record.  In fact, I don't think I have made a single doorstop yet.  This is a great book if you don't mind spending a fair amount of time on a loaf. The only problem with it is that there are a number of errors (naming the wrong type of flour, incorrect measurments) that take a while to figure out.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart is similar to Local Breads and makes for a nice companion. If you can't figure something out from one book, the other might have the answer.  Peter Reinhart also has the website Pizza Quest that has some very entertaining and informative webisodes for people interested in making great pizza.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois lays out a simple method of breadmaking for people who don't want to spend the time that the above two books require.  The thrust of the method is to mix a simple dough in a bowl or container and then store it in the refrigerator until you want to bake and then you pull a pull a piece of dough out, let it warm up for a bit, and then bake it.  I thought this was going to be a gimmicky kind of book, but it seems to me to be a very well researched system and I have a number of friends who use it.   I have had bread from the system and it was very good.