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    52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure
    Unavailable
    52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure
    Unavailable
    52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure
    Ebook461 pages5 hours

    52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure

    By William Alexander

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “A clever weekend baker learns some life lessons, loaf by loaf . . . His bright writing highlights a pleasing variety of comical misadventures” (Kirkus Reviews).

    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. Now, on the theory that practice makes perfect, he sets out to bake peasant bread every week until he gets it right. He bakes his 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.

    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 all of us respond to the aroma of baking bread.

    “Serious, irreverent, funny, and informative at the same time, 52 Loaves reflects precisely the frustrating and infuriating—if not impossible—process of creating the perfect bread.” —Jacques Pépin

    “Nitpicking obsessiveness was never so appetizing.” —Entertainment Weekly

    “Alexander’s breathless, witty memoir is a joy to read. It’s equal parts facts and fun. . . . Alexander is wildly entertaining on the page, dropping clever one-liners in the form of footnotes and parenthetical afterthoughts throughout.” —The Boston Globe

    “A warm, laugh-out-loud [memoir] . . . Alexander writes about the ups (few), the downs (numerous) and a lively history of bread itself, all recounted in a self-effacing but often irreverent voice.” —The Oregonian
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 25, 2011
    ISBN9781616200626
    Unavailable
    52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure
    Author

    William Alexander

    William Alexander won the National Book Award for his debut novel, Goblin Secrets, and won the Earphones Award for his narration of the audiobook. His other novels include A Festival of Ghosts, A Properly Unhaunted Place, Ghoulish Song, Nomad, and Ambassador. William studied theater and folklore at Oberlin College, English at the University of Vermont, and creative writing at the Clarion workshop. He teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Like the protagonist of Nomad and Ambassador, William is the son of a Latino immigrant to the US. Visit him online at WillAlex.net and GoblinSecrets.com, and on Twitter via @WillieAlex.

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    Reviews for 52 Loaves

    4/5

    79 ratings14 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This book is less about the art of bread making and more a book about an obsessions. The bread making is the context for the author's journey of self discovery. I was more interested in the bread than his self-actualization. So, I was disappointed in this book because it not what I was expecting.
    • 4/5
      I was first attracted to this book by its title. The idea that a man wants to grow his own wheat, harvest it, grind flour and do everything he can to reproduce an artisanal loaf of bread is intriguing to say the least. As a librarian, I must admit that I was more than a tad put off by the idea that he would begin a backyard wheat field without an ounce of research. He didn't know if he was planting the right kind of wheat for the region in which lived, if it was the right kind for the bread he wanted to make...Really? Hello? Call your local library. Finally on page 41 Mr. Alexander "hopped on to the Internet" and did a LOT of research. Many interesting side trips discuss events such as the pellagra epidemic of the early 1900s which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths until dietary experiments determined that dried yeast could prevent the disease.
    • 4/5
      Really enjoyable - I love this authors writing style...it works well for me!
    • 5/5
      I loved this book - so much so, that I went out and bought The $64 tomato. Obsessive, compulsive, driven, but also reflective, thoughtful, and intelligent - Alexander comes through as a very complex person. I certainly wouldn't want to marry him, but I'll read anything he writes.
    • 2/5
      Alexander's memoir about baking bread left me cold. I didn't connect with him on any meaningful level. I'm a baker- a dilettante to be sure- but I never felt the sort of connection with the dough I was looking for here. It took him almost 125 pages to even get around to kneading the dough by hand, fercryinoutloud. For me, that's the beauty part.

      The structure was awkward, I thought, and didn't even begin to make sense till he took up residency in the monastery at the end of the book. Simply didn't work for me on any level.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book a lot, perhaps partly because I'm a little bread-obsessed right now, but also because it's entertaining and amusing. It's a little formulaic and predictable, perhaps, but I did learn a thing or two from it. It's well-crafted and witty.
    • 5/5
      This book was fantastic. I didn't know what to expect when I first started reading it, but as the story went on I enjoyed it more and more.
    • 3/5
      Decent book about the authors obsession of baking a loaf of bread that mimics one he had years ago. As a bread baker I understood his issues. Occassionally he made me laugh out loud. I was looking forward to creating a loaf of bread from his recipe, but it was too complicated!!
    • 4/5
      His attempt to make the "perfect" bread was amusing; sometimes even laugh out loud funny. I can't wait to try the levain.
    • 4/5
      Our author bakes a loaf of peasant bread every week for a year. along the way he learns the chemistry of flour, the biology of yeast and the ways ofa moastery in France. It was the monastery where Patrick Leigh Fremour use to stay! Quite good.
    • 4/5
      Really funny depiction of a man in chase of his perfect bread recipe. Kinda reminds me of my pursuits as an amateur baker.
    • 5/5
      The author describes his year-long quest for the perfect artisan bread - and as a home baker I recognise every step of the way (and it has me laughing out loud repeatedly). As he bakes a bread a week, he also researches many aspects of bread baking and the book is full of fascinating background information.I love this book!
    • 4/5
      One man's journey to create the perfect loaf. Not a recipe book but rather an expression of passion for baking.
    • 3/5
      Phew, finally got through this. I skim read parts. I know lots more about bread baking technique now as well as how to build a mud oven, the relationship between bread & corn & pellagra in the south in the early part of the 20th century, and the unexpected ways staying in a monastery can affect you. But I conclude that the author is rather obsessive compulsive and a little bit too crazy for my reading taste though he does seem like he might be charming in person. The effort he took in baking a loaf a week and trying many different techniques, traveling and taking bread baking classes, breaking two ovens and growing his own wheat then milling it himself with an old Indian millstone. . . seemed an overly belabored conceit for a book to me. Or an over the top obsession.