My nightmare

I recently met a guy who is living my nightmare…he has celiac sprue. This is a disease where the person becomes allergic to wheat!!! If there is one thing that I love it is baking bread. If I had celiac sprue I would probably lose some of this weight I’ve gained the last 2 years but I would be miserable...miserable. But I digress; this is really a post about bread, not about being allergic to bread. We have two bread cookbooks, one pastry cookbook, two pie cookbooks, and one cake cookbook. Our first bread book was The Bread Bible by Ruth Levy Beranbaum and with some reservations we really love her book. It has many fantastic breads in it and it is a great book to start with for someone wanting to make their own bread. However, she is first and foremost a dessert expert (her cake book is amazing, as is her pie & pastry book. Nothing we’ve tried has turned out anything less than amazing) and the difference between her book and our recent purchase The Bread Baker’s Assistant is evident. Peter Reinhart is a bread instructor at Johnson & Wales University and he knows bread. This book doesn’t have quite as many recipes (or formulas as he calls them) and the ones that he does have are mostly hearth breads (also called rustic breads, or artisan breads) and taste absolutely amazing. Hearth breads are breads made from flour, water, yeast, and salt and that’s essentially it, but can be manipulated to produce a wide variety of different textures, shapes, and tastes. In case you’ve never had these breads, or more likely have never made these, I would highly recommend it. They are simple to make and absolutely delicious.