We needed bread for the family to go with cheese - local Pithiviers and Gien were our favorites - and to accompany the wonderfully crisp Loire Valley white wines. So, we asked around for the best source. All leads pointed to the stone oven of an older gentleman baker and his son living in the hills outside the village. We chipped away at the opaque freeze on the windows of our Citroen and off we went to find the pain de campagne.

Following our noses, we sought the renowned bread. We climbed a hill stretching up from the main dirt road. There was a pungency that absolutely overtook us, a smell of the best bread in the world, a smell that wended its way deep to the marrow. By the time we arrived at the crest of the hill, the children were pink and wide-eyed, hopping like small birds on the cold ground. Then we saw the bread. It was the biggest bread we’d ever seen. It was almost as high as Paul, our 2-year old, nearly 3 feet. The flour-encrusted young boulanger guided earthy round loaves from the steaming outdoor oven to a stone side table and then handed a cooled loaf to us. The father baker tore off pieces of the loaf and handed them to us. I still recall the sour, toothy crunch of crust and core of that bread. We talked a while, sipping Sancerre and learning that the people of the town used chunks of the bread to thicken soups and as salad croutons once the bread staled. As we walked down the hill, the huge round of bread in hand, I chatted with the kids while my husband spoke with the bakers. It was only after we were well on our way back to Palaiseau that he told me that the senior boulanger had offered to negotiate a wine country trade: a loaf of his bread for a roll in the hay with madame.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK AT AMAZON.COM

Return to top of page

Sometimes, seen from an auto at fifty miles per hour, trellis wires give the impression of sheets of silver. The quality of light in this region is often extraordinary and has been the inspiration for many an artist’s eye. If your eye grabs a point and moves with it, you will see a blur of color. But allow the view to skip from row to row of vines and it will seem to be a series of mirrors, channels reflecting plants in various stages of life. In fact, it is the constant awareness of the life-growth-harvest cycle of renewal that invokes reflectiveness throughout the year….

…Those who have visited the wine regions of Europe will see similarities in the rocky grape-growing terrains and occasionally in the vistas. However, I believe that there is one major difference from the tourist’s point of view: in Europe, a vineyard visit is just that, a walk in the vineyard, if you’re lucky. More often, it is a descent into a cool basement to taste some wine and make a purchase. If you wish to see imposing architecture accessible to the public, you must travel to the various chateaux regions that often are near but separated from the vineyards. And they often require special reservations. Here in the Napa Valley, a visitor has the best of all worlds. Superb wines are available at any of more than two hundred fifty wineries, and often the establishments are housed in magnificent structures themselves worthy of castle-visits. As it turns out, winery owners are the royalty of the Napa Valley, their kingdoms being vineyards and wineries….

…In my hometown of St. Helena, certain daily observations still strike me as gifts rather than facts of life. I have lived in big cities and nothing there offers such basic pleasure as the morning greeting from the postman when I pick up my mail or the sound of frogs croaking on starry spring nights. The OK Barber Shop on Main Street hasn’t changed its interior in at least fifty years, and its dull green, ecru, and chrome fixtures aren’t likely to switch to those of a styling salon. Crusty country loaves continue to exit hot from the Model Bakery’s brick oven, and the town merchants chatter in the morning light as they sweep their sidewalk footage. Crime decreased by 31 percent in 1989 in St. Helena; there wasn’t much to speak of before and hasn’t been since. And a call-to-alarm alerts volunteer Fire Department members and townspeople of some strain in the otherwise calm life of the town. There are other images, too. There’s a freckled boy -- maybe ten years old -- who frequently bicycles to school, tugging his laughing pal on a skateboard tied to the end of a rope. There is a sweet down-home honesty about this place. Ever-present birds add their joyful touch to daily life. Occasionally a flock of red-winged blackbirds will swoop to a fence rail, exposing a sudden surprise of brilliant red feathers at their shoulders. Or, when unpicked grapes still hang like udders from vines in December, it’s not unusual for the sky to be filled with careening, twittering starlings, drunk from the yeasty vineyard fruit…

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK AT AMAZON.COM

Return to top of page

What is the soul of a written recipe? There is a basic creativity about recipe writing that balances the traditional verbal passage of a culinary procedure with the scientific accuracy of a laboratory formula. Ideally, a recipe captures the essence of the food in question, as well as the very culture of the dish and the personal interests of the recipe writer.

Is there a magic to popular recipes? It seems to me that a good recipe resembles a good joke. If you can quickly grasp the food concept and repeat the method with relative ease, chances are the recipe will find a niche in the culinary repertoire of cooks, be they experienced or novice. As a result, some recipes, just like great one-liners, pass from generation to generation.

Behind the success of such recipes lies a detailed formula. In this book, Jane Baker and Barbara Ostmann present a complete range of recipe formulae. As a result of the authors’ extensive research, this text turns the tables on most recipe experiences in order to teach the intimate elements of the recipe-writing art. In fact, the standard use of a recipe moves from the sourcebook - generally a cookbook - to the finished presentation at table. The pace here is reversed: Written recipes result from analysis and understanding of the food. By harnessing the names of a basketful of ingredients, listing amounts for culinary preparation, and describing cooking methods in brief detail, the recipe writer can best understand and describe the process of cooking.

For those who hold that the heart of fine recipe writing is recipe testing, put on your apron and run, don’t walk, to Chapter Four for insights on such key issues as judging target audience; doubling recipes on paper and in reality; how to deal with testing/writing about ethnic ingredients as well as measuring foods with variable volumes such as some fruits and vegetables and pastas. There is no question that by observing the recipe testing and writing instructions, your recipes will be crystalline in style, leading toward successfully prepared and cooked foods.

In a sense, the aims of a perfectly written recipe closely resemble the aspirations of a well-balanced life. Consider the key goals: order, clarity, accuracy, and style. One possible outcome of such goals achieved, whether related to life or to recipes, is longevity - given well-chosen input and a good measure of luck.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK AT AMAZON.COM

Return to top of page