April 24th, 2025
Home | Log in!

On Top Shelf
THE CHRISTMAS PACTTHE CHRISTMAS PACT
Fresh Pick
QUICKSILVER
QUICKSILVER

New Books This Week

Reader Games

🌸 April Showers Giveaways


March Into Romance: New Releases to Fall in Love With!

Slideshow image


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
"A KNOCKOUT STORY!"
From New York Times
Bestselling Cleo Coyle


slideshow image
To keep his legacy, he must keep his wife. But she's about to change the game.


slideshow image
A haunting past. A heartbreaking secret. A love that still echoes across time.


slideshow image
A city slicker. A country cowboy. A love they didn�t plan for.


slideshow image
The mission is clear. The attraction? Completely out of control.


slideshow image
A string of fires. A growing attraction. And a danger neither of them saw coming.


52 Loaves
William Alexander

One Man's Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust

Algonquin Books
May 2010
On Sale: May 4, 2010
352 pages
ISBN: 1565125835
EAN: 9781565125834
Hardcover
Add to Wish List

Non-Fiction Inspirational

William Alexander is determined to bake the perfect loaf of bread. He tasted it long ago, in a restaurant, and has been trying to reproduce it ever since. Without success. But now he’s going to try again—every week for one year—until he gets it right. He will bake his peasant loaf from scratch. And because Alexander is nothing if not thorough, he really means from scratch: growing, harvesting, winnowing, threshing, and milling his own wheat.

Alexander’s often hilarious quest takes our (anti)hero through dangerous back alleys of Morocco, where he bakes his loaf in an ancient communal oven; to Paris, where he enrolls in the cours de boulangerie at the famed École Ritz Escoffier; to a monastery in Normandy, where (his lack of French and faith notwithstanding) he becomes bread baker to the monks; and finally to his own backyard, where he builds a lopsided brick oven and learns that perfection is just a state of mind. Alexander also takes us along on entertaining visits to yeast factories and flour mills, seeks advice from master bread bakers, captures wild yeast to make his own levain, and enters the baking contest at the New York State Fair.

An original take on the six-thousand-year-old staple of life, 52 Loaves explores the nature of obsession, the meditative quality of ritual, the futility of trying to re- create something perfect, our deep connection to the earth, and the mysterious instinct that makes every single person on the planet, regardless of culture or society, respond to the aroma of baking bread.

No awards found for this book.

Comments

No comments posted.

Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!

© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy