Beyond The Bread Basket

Master baker Eric Kayser reveals the secret of his marvelous creations, and provides innovative and delicious ways of incorporating bread into a variety of main courses, accompaniments, and desserts.With much flair and the hand of a practiced baker, he presents his collection of sixty surprising and easy-to-follow recipes, transforming bread into a condiment in recipes such as Stuffed Mussels, Breadcrumbs with Curry, or Sausage Crumble, or the main ingredient of a dish as in Chicken with Raisin Bread Stuffing. Kayser uses bread as a plate or bowl for his bruschetta, tapas, soup, and Roasted Vegetable Salad. He reinvents the humble sandwich and offers new versions of open-faced tartine sandwiches, whether classic Foccacio with Sesame Seeds or exotic Tandoori Chicken. Rounding off this collection are irresistible desserts that are pure treasures of sweetness, such as French Toast with Caramelized Apples, Chocolate Soup, and Toasted Brioche."

For more than 10,000 years, grains have been the staples of Western civilization. The stored energy of grain allowed our ancestors to shift from nomadic hunting and gathering and build settled communities—even great cities. Though most bread now comes from factory bakeries, the symbolism of wheat and bread—amber waves of grain, the staff of life—still carries great meaning. Today, bread and beer are once again building community as a new band of farmers, bakers, millers, and maltsters work to reinvent local grain systems. The New Bread Basket tells their stories and reveals the village that stands behind every loaf and every pint. While eating locally grown crops like heirloom tomatoes has become almost a cliché, grains are late in arriving to local tables, because growing them requires a lot of land and equipment. Milling, malting, and marketing take both tools and cooperation. The New Bread Basket reveals the bones of that cooperation, profiling the seed breeders, agronomists, and grassroots food activists who are collaborating with farmers, millers, bakers, and other local producers. Take Andrea and Christian Stanley, a couple who taught themselves the craft of malting and opened the first malthouse in New England in one hundred years. Outside Ithaca, New York, bread from a farmer-miller-baker partnership has become an emblem in the battle against shale gas fracking. And in the Pacific Northwest, people are shifting grain markets from commodity exports to regional feed, food, and alcohol production. Such pioneering grain projects give consumers an alternative to industrial bread and beer, and return their production to a scale that respects people, local communities, and the health of the environment. Many Americans today avoid gluten and carbohydrates. Yet, our shared history with grains—from the village baker to Wonder Bread—suggests that modern changes in farming and processing could be the real reason that grains have become suspect in popular nutrition. The people profiled in The New Bread Basket are returning to traditional methods like long sourdough fermentations that might address the dietary ills attributed to wheat. Their work and lives make our foundational crops visible, and vital, again.

Inspired by the hearty and nutritious ingredients that he uses in his bakeries, Éric Kayser has created 50 new recipes that celebrate "superfood" ingredients such as whole grains (wheat, rye, oats), seeds (sesame, sunflower, poppy), dried fruit (prunes, raisins, figs), and nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts). Kayser includes both sweet and savory recipes that will dazzle your taste buds: try chestnut, apricot, and pistachio bread; mussels in a lime-and-beer sauce; or eggplant caviar drizzled with sesame oil—the options for delicious and balanced meals are endless! Kayser’s fresh approach to cooking offers nutritious, flavorful dishes that are simple and enjoyable to prepare, for experienced chefs and fledgling cooks alike. His recipes are a fresh and easy take on French cuisine today.

At long last, the holy grail of gluten-free vegan baking: airy, light, and tender breads, from Erin McKenna, founder of BabyCakes NYC and Erin McKenna's Bakery NYC and the visionary who also cracked the code of vegan frosting For two decades, a gluten sensitivity forced Erin McKenna to ignore the bread basket that accompanies dinner at her favorite restaurants. Brunch was even worse: flaky croissants, biscuits, bagels . . . As an act of self-preservation, she tried to pretend they didn’t exist. After pioneering vegan and gluten-free dessert baking at her beloved bicoastal bakery, Erin set about righting this wrong, tackling the beautiful treats in those forbidden bread baskets. The result is all the savory bread a gluten-free vegan guy or gal could want and more, including English Muffins, Cinnamon Raisin Bread, Sweet Potato Sage Rolls, Pizza Dough, Corn Tortillas, Puff Pastry Dough, Pretzels, Scallion Pancakes, even a simple and perfect Sandwich Bread. And since you can’t say “bread” without saying “butter,” she created a rich and creamy vegan butter unlike anything else, too. The world’s bread basket just got a whole lot fuller.

Growing up in Oklahoma, Darcy endures her parent’s battling, her father’s abandonment, and her mother’s determination to make their way in the world by taking in a succession of boarders. Frank Wilson, an itinerant worker, appears at the dinner table one evening and soon becomes the man she loves. He can unstick her from her everyday existence, and she marries him. Too late, she finds escape is not that easy.

This is the first full history of Operation Breadbasket, the interfaith economic justice program that transformed into Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH (now the Rainbow PUSH Coalition). Begun by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement, Breadbasket was directed by Jackson. Author Martin L. Deppe was one of Breadbasket’s founding pastors. He digs deeply into the program’s past to update the meager narrative about Breadbasket, add details to King’s and Jackson’s roles, and tell Breadbasket’s little-known story. Under the motto “Your Ministers Fight for Jobs and Rights,” the program put bread on the tables of the city’s African American families in the form of steady jobs. Deppe details how Breadbasket used the power of the pulpit to persuade businesses that sought black dollars to also employ a fair share of blacks. Though they favored negotiations, Breadbasket pastors also organized effective boycotts, as they did after one manager declared that he was “not about to let Negro preachers tell him what to do.” Over six years, Breadbasket’s efforts netted forty-five hundred jobs and sharply increased commerce involving black-owned businesses. Economic gains on Chicago’s South Side amounted to $57.5 million annually by 1971. Deppe traces Breadbasket’s history from its early “Don’t Buy” campaigns through a string of achievements related to black employment and black-owned products, services, and businesses. To the emerging call for black power, Bread­basket offered a program that actually empowered the black community, helping it engage the mainstream economic powers on an equal footing. Deppe recounts plans for Breadbasket’s national expansion; its sponsored business expos; and the Saturday Breadbasket gatherings, a hugely popular black-pride forum. Deppe shows how the program evolved in response to growing pains, changing alliances, and the King assassination. Breadbasket’s rich history, as told here, offers a still-viable model for attaining economic justice today.

Holistic nutritionist and highly-regarded blogger Sarah Britton presents a refreshing, straight-forward approach to balancing mind, body, and spirit through a diet made up of whole foods. Sarah Britton's approach to plant-based cuisine is about satisfaction--foods that satiate on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Based on her knowledge of nutrition and her love of cooking, Sarah Britton crafts recipes made from organic vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds. She explains how a diet based on whole foods allows the body to regulate itself, eliminating the need to count calories. My New Roots draws on the enormous appeal of Sarah Britton's blog, which strikes the perfect balance between healthy and delicious food. She is a "whole food lover," a cook who makes simple accessible plant-based meals that are a pleasure to eat and a joy to make. This book takes its cues from the rhythms of the earth, showcasing 100 seasonal recipes. Sarah simmers thinly sliced celery root until it mimics pasta for Butternut Squash Lasagna, and whips up easy raw chocolate to make homemade chocolate-nut butter candy cups. Her recipes are not about sacrifice, deprivation, or labels--they are about enjoying delicious food that's also good for you.