“By turns funny, tragic, astute, and enlightening, [Dreams of Bread and Fire] is an engrossing coming-of-age tale.” —Library Journal, starred review Half Jewish, half Armenian Ani is desperately in love with a New England boy with a trust fund as big as his appetites, and the farthest thing possible from the Old World accents and superstitions that filled her childhood home. But after leaving for a year in Paris, she receives a letter from him ending their relationship. Embarking on a series of romantic misadventures, Ani soon reconnects with a childhood friend. Elusive and intriguing, Van Ardavanian is preoccupied with the Armenian heritage they share and provides Ani with a new connection to her identity—even as she begins to suspect that he has a secret, and dangerous, identity himself. The dark shadows of history surrounding Van propel Ani into a profound and passionate series of journeys: a quest for a long-dead father, a search for the clues of a nearly forgotten genocide, and a love threatened by a quietly gathering storm of murder and retribution. “Kricorian does for young women what James Joyce did for middle-aged men: She allows us to scramble safely amid the debris of new love, rejection, sex and identity.” —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review

A compact and useful guide for Jewish brides and grooms about to embark on the building of a new home.

Creating the perfect loaf of bread--a challenge that has captivated bakers for centuries--is now the rage in the hippest places, from Waitsfield, Vermont, to Point Reyes Station, California. Like the new generation of beer drinkers who consciously seek out distinctive craft-brewed beers, many people find that their palates have been reawakened and re-educated by the taste of locally baked, whole-grain breads. Today's village bakers are finding an important new role--linking tradition with a sophisticated new understanding of natural levens, baking science and oven construction. Daniel Wing, a lover of all things artisanal, had long enjoyed baking his own sourdough bread. His quest for the perfect loaf began with serious study of the history and chemistry of bread baking, and eventually led to an apprenticeship with Alan Scott, the most influential builder of masonry ovens in America. Alan and Daniel have teamed up to write this thoughtful, entertaining, and authoritative book that shows you how to bake superb healthful bread and build your own masonry oven. The authors profile more than a dozen small-scale bakers around the U.S. whose practices embody the holistic principles of community-oriented baking based on whole grains and natural leavens. The Bread Builders will appeal to a broad range of readers, including: Connoisseurs of good bread and good food. Home bakers interested in taking their bread and pizza to the next level of excellence. Passionate bakers who fantasize about making a living by starting their own small bakery. Do-it-yourselfers looking for the next small construction project. Small-scale commercial bakers seeking inspiration, the most up-to-date knowledge about the entire bread-baking process, and a marketing edge.

In preindustrial Europe, dependence on grain shaped every phase of life from economic development to spiritual expression, and the problem of subsistence dominated the everyday order of things in a merciless and unremitting way. Steven Laurence Kaplan’s The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700–1775 focuses on the production and distribution of France’s most important commodity in the sprawling urban center of eighteenth-century Paris where provisioning needs were most acutely felt and most difficult to satisfy. Kaplan shows how the relentless demand for bread constructed the pattern of daily life in Paris as decisively and subtly as elaborate protocol governed the social life at Versailles. Despite the overpowering salience of bread in public and private life, Kaplan’s is the first inquiry into the ways bread exercised its vast and significant empire. Bread framed dreams as well as nightmares. It was the staff of life, the medium of communion, a topic of common discourse, and a mark of tradition as well as transcendence. In his exploration of bread’s materiality and cultural meaning, Kaplan looks at bread’s fashioning of identity and examines the conditions of supply and demand in the marketplace. He also sets forth a complete history of the bakers and their guild, and unmasks the methods used by the authorities in their efforts to regulate trade. Because the bakers and their bread were central to Parisian daily life, Kaplan’s study is also a comprehensive meditation on an entire society, its government, and its capacity to endure. Long-awaited by French history scholars, The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700–1775 is a landmark in eighteenth-century historiography, a book that deeply contextualizes, and thus enriches our understanding of one of the most important eras in European history.

At long last, the classic text by acclaimed French baking expert Raymond Calvel is available in English. Professor Calvel is known throughout the world for his research on the production of quality French and European hearth breads, and this new English edition, undertaken by translator Ronald L. Wirtz and technical editor James J. MacGuire, brings Calvel’s expertise to the English-speaking world. The Taste of Bread is a thorough guide to the elements and principles behind the production of good-tasting bread, including a broad variety of bread products as flavored breads, breadsticks, croissants, brioches, and other regional baked goods. Each important aspect of the process is covered: wheat and milling characteristics of breadmaking flour dough composition oxidation in the mixing process leavening and fermentation effects of dough division and formation baking and equipment storage The English edition provides notes and information specifically on the use of North American flours and includes recipes in both metric and US units. Enhanced with new black-and-white and color photography, The Taste of Bread will be a key resource for bakers and other culinary professionals and students who must understand the complex elements that yield quality breads.

At Gram’s Country Cooking School, Isabelle “Betts” Winston and her grandmother share their home-style culinary secrets. But what they keep to themselves are the secrets of Broken Rope, a quiet little Missouri town, that isn't nearly as quiet as it seems... A fresh school year begins as Gram and Betts anxiously await the arrival of their new crop of students. But their enthusiasm is thwarted when a stranger named Freddie O’Bannon arrives and claims to have proof that he was accepted to the school despite what is in their files. And when the ghost of Cylas Gent, a young man who might have a romantic past with Gram, also appears, there are suddenly two mysteries demanding their attention. But just as Gram and Betts start sifting through the past, one of their new students is murdered. Does the seemingly sweet Freddie O’Bannon have something sinister to hide, or are Gram’s ghosts trying to teach her a lesson? Either way, it’s up to the country cooks to catch a killer before another living soul gets burned. Includes delicious recipes!