Review: A Homemade Life (Orangette)

Readers of Orangette all know that Molly Wizenberg can write. Her new book, A Homemade Life, is personal and touching and clever, with words that reflect the soft-focus photographs found on her blog that synthesize honesty and beauty in such an interesting way. The book is a series of delightful vignettes that align biographical anecdotes with recipes. While her stories are interesting and her recall of charming details is impressive, it is really the shape and rhythm and choice of words that won me over so completely.

Molly is willing to bare her humanity, and is as unashamed to write about her quirks and crushes as how much she loves her parents. She is not trying to be cool, and you adore her for it. She gives the reader a heartwarming lense into her life, very different from the "can't look away from the car wreck" titillation so popular in modern tell-all books and reality shows. Her narrative voice is youthful, but not naive nor saccharine.

Above all, you see how much she loves food (in particular, cake -- she's big into cake). We both love comfort food, and while Orangette tends towards the baking/dessert side of things, and I steer towards savory, there are still quite a few recipes in this book that I am looking forward to trying, all clearly explained.

As is most obvious, I recommend the book very highly. I hope you are as delighted as I was.

Review: Artisan Bread in 5 Min a Day

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, came out about a year ago and positive reviews have been percolating around the blogosphere for some time. Recently, I decided to pick up the book and try my hand.

First of all, other than making pate brisee for savory pastry dishes, I have historically not enjoyed baking at all. I'm a cook rather than a baker (Lisl usually does all the baking in our household). So with that context, I'll come out and say that I am really happy with this book. The process is extremely easy and the results delicious.

We have tried making bread purely in a breadmaker, doing a combo breadmaker-oven approach, the no-knead method Bittman wrote about long ago, and now this. This is my favorite method so far combining ease and flavor, and I look forward to exploring the Artisan book further.

The instructions are easy and clear (and make sure you read them!). You might also check out the corrections they have posted on their website. Two notes from authors: before you bake, let the dough (however you shape it) rest for at least 40 minutes (I did 40 minutes on the dot and results were great), and slash the top of the dough right before you put it in the oven.

I would be well into my third batch of dough if I hadn't broken my baking stone by pouring water on it when it was really hot (the water was intended for the broiling pan on the rack below... fumble fingers!). I would actually mix up double the size of the basic recipe if I had more room in my fridge, but I don't think I can squeeze bigger than a 5.5 quart bowl in there.

Lastly, I'll note that one of the authors, Zoe Francois, has a great blog at Zoe Bakes and there is an official book blog here. Watching Zoe interact on Twitter was the clincher in my deciding to get the book (not that reviews haven't been great but, again, I usually don't bake). It is wonderful to see people who want to be part of the community, rather than just pitch something at the community. An increasing amount of the latter exists on Twitter (and all social media really), and I have no time or interest in such behavior. So I tip my hat to you Zoe, and thank you and Jeff for creating such a wonderful book.

Update P.S. as I was writing this, Peter over at Kalofagas was trying out this book as well and twittering his progress. He sounded as positive as I am.