Rosemary and Garlic Fougasse

Many a time, I wonder if I had apprenticed at my neighborhood bread maker’s bakery when I was a still an impressionable young person, I might have made a name for myself in the art of making breads. I didn’t apprentice so I have not made anything in the name department for myself. But I did observe and I absorbed. The rhythmic kneading, the gentle folding, the blistering heat and the divine aroma of baked bread. It’s all etched in my memory. And bread making always takes me back home to those carefree days. I hope someday my daughter looks …

Fougasse with Herbes de Provence

[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells…there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.” M. F. K. Fisher, ‘The Art of Eating’ When we were young girls, a little younger than my daughter is right now, my sister and I used to take turns buying the morning bread from the neighborhood baker. It wasn’t something I looked forward …