Books and Breads Blog

May 1, 2016

The Incarnations by Susan Barker *** (of 4)

China, despite its rocket launch into modernity, is still a country of five thousand years of history. As Americans, a people that at best can only recall...

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April 8, 2016

Redeployment by Phil Klay *** (of 4)

Phil Klay’s short stories about Marine Corps life in Iraq and after Iraq begin so realistically that I had to check to confirm I was...

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March 25, 2016

Black Flags by Joby Warrick *** (of 4)

Sadly, so much of the terror that has become ISIS in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the countries of North Africa and the attacks in Europe are a...

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February 28, 2016

Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya ** (of 4)

In the first half of the book, Pasha, an intentionally depressive poet, because without depression there can be no decent poetry, arrives from Odessa to...

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February 19, 2016

Bread Class

(Click on photos to see full size.) To prepare for our fermentation lab in Soil to Plate I made three jars of Meadville starter for the two...

Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

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February 19, 2016

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell ** (of 4)

I love Sarah Vowell’s hip hop style of writing and she is hooked on an interesting fellow. The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American...

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February 7, 2016

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell **** (of 4)

This is a tale both microscopic in scope and biblical in scale. The scene is 1920s Illinois before the age of machines and corporations when...

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January 29, 2016

A Week of Feasts

Every year around Christmas time, my wife’s brother Marty, flies from Los Angeles to Meadville to cook and bake. He makes main courses of goose...

Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

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January 29, 2016

The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt ** (of 4)

Hardwick was a down and out village in rural Vermont. Unemployment was high, farmers were struggling, and main street was worn out. As if almost...

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January 29, 2016

Murder on the Kibbutz by Batya Gur **** (of 4)

There are several reasons to read murder mysteries. After all, the expectation upon opening the book is something really awful must happen before the story can...

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