November 6, 2007 - 10:03am
Do I really need BBA?
Greetings.
To open, a confession. I have a nasty bread book habit. Really nasty.
Tho' I try to mitigate the malady by typically acquiring relatively inexpensive, gently used volumes.
And I do actually bake some of the recipes, too. ;7)
Over the past few years, I've acquired:
Hamelman's Bread,
Leader's Bread Alone,
Glezer's Artisan & Blessing volumes,
Reinhart's Brother Juniper
and the tragically out-of-print:
No Need to Knead (Dunaway) &
Village Baker (Ortiz).
So -- is BBA going to provide me with anything significant that I don't already have in my current library?
Thoughtful analysis, careless half-truths and outright lies all welcome.
- Richard
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Do you need it? No.
Would you enjoy it? Probably.
Yes!!!!!! (I had to respond because I was LOL after reading your question.)
Of course, I own almost all that you have listed and then some, so I may be suffering from the same ailment. Now I do not have P.R's Brother Juniper, but the BBA has the reputation that it is somewhat better. Here is my suggestion- go to the library and try some of the recipes, and then decide if you need to buy it. I do that a lot. And finding slighly used is a great idea- I have also acquired at least one of my books that way.
And put things in perspective, you could have worse habits!!!
Caryn -
Glad I provided some mirth -- that's often my intent.
It's probably noteworthy that used copies of BBA are currently pretty much non-existent.
Curiously, I enjoy Brother Juniper more for the 'philosophy' than the recipes. It was around the same time I read that book that I migrated away from the machines to a simpler manual approach to bread ... I suspect that there was some cause and effect there.
Cheers,
- Richard
www.oldwithoutmoney.com
If you can afford to feed your addiction I think a god fix is in order. Personally I think you can never have too many bread books and tis one in my opinion is particulaly good. While I am not a HUGE fan of the reipes in the book I think the techinques presented are very good and the pictures are superb.
> If you can afford to feed your addiction I think a god fix is in order.
I do hope that you meant 'a good fix' ...
Cheers,
- Richard
www.oldwithoutmoney.com
Oh, Richard, I thought that was simply a reference to Peter in his capacity as bread god.
lol ... don't get me started ...
Tho' I can see how some readers might come away with the impression that certain authors have a curiously heightened sense of self-importance.
PR was arguably more circumspect in the Brother Juniper tome.
- Richard
www.oldwithoutmoney.com
Whoops!!!!
I mean, even if you don't *NEED* it to further your bread skills, it makes a really nice coffee table book. The first time I picked it up I said "it's bread porn!"
Though of course mine is now broken in with flour and dough stuck to some of the pages...
Bread porn or useful text personally I think it is worth it either way......
with so many of the people above. You don't "need" any bread book - you can get great recipes here and on the net but...that being said, as some one who loves to bake I can never have too many good bread books :-)
I don't buy cookbooks that are just recipes, but I'll spend money on cooking books that are instructional. Good bread books, like BBA fit that criteria.
I need to get started on my Christmas bread book wishlist!