This thoughtful, meditative, and practical little book is the work of Andrew Barton, a Portland, Oregonian who began baking for a supper club pop-up called Secret Restaurant. Despite that professional background, Barton writes here about baking in one's home kitchen, using an oven you know and a countertop where all your meals are prepared. He takes it for granted that you are very interested in good bread. But where some books assume that interest leads you into deeply technical territory, Barton is more interested in how baking fits into everyday life. He's thoughtful about where he gets his grain and flour, about the parts of the process that he loves and those that he hates. He understands having a formula that (almost) always gives you the bread you want, and he knows why sometimes it's satisfying to change things up. There are recipes for a range of breads, often whole-meal. They're most useful for someone who has done some baking. The Long Loaf is not the first bread baking book someone needs. It's a book that speaks to the ways in which a baker wonders about how to improve and grow. Paperback. Photographs throughout. Self-published and bound and trimmed by hand.
