“Book Love” by the editors Bill Henderson and James Charlton looks like a sweet gift book, from its title to the baby blue of its cover, from that cover’s image of two pages curving together to form a glowing heart to the volume’s diminutive 5 1/2-by-7 1/2-inch size and 130 whimsically illustrated pages.

    Don’t be fooled. From his bunker in Springs Mr. Henderson has enthusiastically loaded his introduction with mortar shells targeting the encroachment of the digital book, which he likens to an unwanted weed or a voracious carp. Among the salvos: In digital distraction we’re losing our ability to read at length and with true comprehension; thought itself may be on its way out. In thrall to technological innovation, we are unwittingly unraveling the mind-advances made since the Renaissance (he cites Nicholas Carr in this passage).

    One round zeroes in on the supposed environmental benefits of the proliferation of e-readers like the Kindle: the saving of trees. But what about recycled paper? And as the Western states bumper sticker says, “If it can’t be grown, it’s gotta be mined.” In the case of the digital reader, that would be metals, often from Africa, with all the problems of politics and exploitation that implies.

    But then “Book Love” moves on to its more than 600 quotations, in a trinity of groupings: Books, Readers, Writers. Sticking to the theme of Mr. Henderson’s introduction, here’s Nicholson Baker — the author of “Double Fold,” which famously excoriated libraries for dumping old newspapers in the name of nothing more than freeing up some storage space — on the book as object: “It is rectangular and thick, heavy enough to stop a bullet or press a leaf flat. It will, you think, never let you through. And then you begin to lean into it . . . and you’re in. You’re in the book.”

    This one’s published by, who else, Mr. Henderson’s own Pushcart Press and sells for $15.50.    

    On Saturday and Sunday, Book­Hampton is celebrating spring with Mayhem, a weekend festival of mysteries and mystery writers, ranging from old childhood favorites to the newest — dare we say it? — cutting-edge whodunits, featuring well-known authors reading from, or talking about, their works.

    On Saturday at 10 a.m in the East Hampton store, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, a personality on “The Real Housewives of New York City” and the author of “In the Spirit of the Hamptons,” will host a marathon reading of Carolyn Keene’s timeless Nancy Drew mystery “The Secret of the Old Clock.” Any and all readers under the age of 16 will be invited to step up and join in to read for a few paragraphs. The event will be taped for future broadcast.

    At 2 p.m. Saturday, also in East Hampton, Linda Fairstein, a former assistant district attorney and chief of New York City’s sex crimes unit, will be BookHampton’s guest author in the “Conversations With” series. Ms. Fair­stein has written several best-selling novels featuring Alexandra Cooper, an intrepid prosecutor, that are set at New York City landmarks. Her talk will focus on “The City as Character.” Her latest book, “Silent Mercy,” features churches around Manhattan, including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights.

    In the Southampton store at 2 p.m., junior detectives are again asked to join Ms. Killoren Bensimon as she explores and tapes some classic young-reader favorites: “Nate the Great,” “Cam Jansen,” and “Encylopedia Brown.” Everyone under 10 years old is invited to read a chapter, even if a little help from an older sibling or parent is needed.

    For those who can handle a little more gore between the covers, BookHampton in Sag Harbor will offer a table of tough guys at 3 p.m. Saturday: Lorenzo Carcaterra (“Sleepers”), Kenneth Wishnia (“The Fifth Servant”), Justin Evans (“The White Devil”), Wallace Stroby (“Cold Shot to the Heart”), Reed Farrel Coleman (“Innocent Monster”), and Michael Atkinson, a longtime film critic and author of the “Hemingway” series, will discuss “Talk the Talk and Write the Walk: The How-to of a Thriller.”

    Quick cut back to the East Hampton store at 4 p.m., where Ms. Fairstein will introduce three new mystery writers: Karen Bergreen, the author of “Following Polly,” Hilary Davidson with “The Damage Done,” and Cara Hoffman, whose book is “So Much Pretty.” They will talk about their writing and read some excerpts.

    Saturday’s mayhem comes to a chilling end at Guild Hall at 8 p.m., when Adam Ross, author of “Mr. Peanut,” will introduce a free screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic creeper “Rear Window,” starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. Mr. Ross, whose book proves he is an expert on all things Hitchcockian, will discuss the esteemed director before the screening.

    On Sunday at the Sag Harbor store, Nelson DeMille, a well-known mystery author who frequently sets his novels on Long Island, will be on hand for an interview celebrating the publication of his new book, “The Rich and the Dead.” Mr. DeMille will be available to sign copies of the book and will also answer questions.

    More information about any of these events can be had by calling Book­Hampton at 324-4939.

    “How to Build Your Own Country,” a nonfiction children’s book by Karen Fredericks, an illustrator who lives in Northwest, East Hampton, and Valerie Wyatt, has won a 2010 Silver Birch Award from the Ontario Library Association, it was announced last week.

    Published by Kids Can Press, the book, which also won a Canadian Children’s Literature Roundtable information award, is part of a series designed to teach children about world events and inspire them to be better global citizens, according to the publisher’s Web site. The interactive book offers kids the “expertise and advice they’ll need to plant their flag in the backyard, in the bedroom, or online,” in topics ranging from history to government to geography.

    The award was the result of votes cast by thousands of young readers in grades three through six, a release said. Ms. Fredericks illustrated the book under the name Fred Rix.

    In “The Quest for Power: Religion and Politics,” Samuel Slipp sets out to show that it is not religion that is the cause of the world’s ills, as some recent writers, who maintain that it is little more than a mass delusion, would have us believe. Rather, says Dr. Slipp, the problem is the combination of religion and politics to create seemingly absolute power.

    Dr. Slipp is an emeritus clinical professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and a supervising and training psychologist at the New York Medical College Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the author of more than 150 articles and six books, including “Curative Factors in Dynamic Psychotherapy” and “Healing the Gender Wars.”

    He uses an interdisciplinary approach in the book, and does so through a wide range of viewpoints, including anti-Semitism in its many forms throughout history, the Gnostic Gospels, Paul’s “creation” of Christianity in the first century, Emperor Constantine’s use of Christianity to claim absolute power, the 17th-century Enlightenment, and parallels between Jesus and Freud in trying to stop abuses of power in religion and politics.

    He also talks about present-day terrorism and the rise of fundamentalist religions, but his emphasis is on the broader historical perspective.

    Dr. Slipp takes on Richard Dawkins (“The God Delusion”) and Christopher Hitchens (“God Is Not Great”). Both, he says, have diagnosed religion as evil and “responsible for slavery, wars, genocide, racism, and tyranny,” and have said religious belief should be eliminated and replaced by “reason as a solution to the world’s problems.”

    “However, blaming religion for the violence is like blaming gasoline for a car crash,” writes Dr. Slipp. “Gasoline fuels the car to operate, but it is the driver and the car that cause the violent results. Religions can be used to inflame passions, but the ultimate goal is to gain power.”

    One way he counters those who claim that “by eliminating religion, terrorists will no longer kill in the name of God” is by pointing out how state-sponsored atheism has of course not stopped violence or misery, but has caused or increased it, as evidenced by the Communist regimes of North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China, or Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. In fact, he says, in those regimes the leaders were worshipped as gods and atheism itself became a fundamentalist religion.

“The Quest for Power”

Samuel Slipp, M.D.

Pitchstone Publishing, $24.95

    Dr. Slipp brings his own contribution to the discussion, using his knowledge of psychoanalysis and neuroscience and highlighting his own work and hypothesis on the synchrony between mother and child and the later synchronous actions of rituals in adults.

    To explain this complex idea simply: The infant’s early attachment to the mother becomes the template for adult group attachment, especially in religious rituals, such as prayer, singing, movement, gesture, and meals, which bond people together, provide social attachment, and lead to a system of morality.

    Whereas, according to Dr. Slipp, Freud compared the repetitious nature of people performing religious rituals to “individuals suffering obsessional neurosis,” Dr. Slipp says that since the rituals are voluntary and performed in a cultural setting as part of a group, they facilitate group cohesion and establish emotional attachment. Such positive benefits, the author says, are not recognized by Mr. Dawkins or Mr. Hitchens.

    Some other interesting topics include how the use of pictorial or visual images (such as the crucifixion) and icons helped the spread of Christianity, how Paul’s gospels led to Christianity’s becoming a hierarchical institution, and how historical, cultural, personal, and biological contexts affect belief.

    Indeed Dr. Slipp makes a notable contribution to the timely debate with his enthusiasm and abundance of ideas. But the book also has shortcomings that might make the careful reader wary.

    Although Dr. Slipp criticizes others for making incorrect, broad generalizations about religion, and does so quite fairly, he unfortunately does the same himself. One example: “The advances in medicine may eventually eliminate faith healing, which believes that diseases are due to God’s punishment for sins or from evil spirits entering the body.”

    In fact, there are numerous varieties of faith healing, many having more to do with the belief in the power of a divine or supernatural intervention for healing than with concerns about God’s punishment, sins, or evil spirits.

    Another example: He says that Jesus “substituted the communal meal for individual Baptismal immersion,” but certainly many Christian denominations do not subscribe to such a doctrine.

    The book has more than its share of editing problems: “. . . if you do not learn from the mistakes of history, we are doomed to repeat them.” The expression “as mentioned” is used nine times in seven and a half pages.

    There are unintended non sequitur sentences: “The Roman emperors could not stamp out the spread of Christianity despite centuries of their being brutally slaughtered in the arena.”

    And factual errors: “. . . Jefferson wrote the Bill of Rights and the American Congress signed it in 1776.” Where does one begin?

    Dr. Slipp includes a wide range of subjects related to the one overarching central theme; there are many more than highlighted here. It is a tall order for 175 pages. While that could be a strength, it is also a weakness. “The Quest for Power” has abundant supporting ideas and numerous details but is much less adequate on tying it all together neatly or forcefully.

    One might have hoped for a stronger ending. Though he seems in the last chapter to be countering Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Dawkins by drawing from such towering, diverse figures as Buddha, Gandhi, the 20th-century American Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Pope Paul II, two paragraphs from the end the narrative inexplicably lapses into “Our Constitution begins with ‘We the people.’ ”

    He makes a sweeping statement that in the U.S. religious and racial discrimination have been decreasing, but the “outside world still cannot accept a world that is pluralistic. . . .” The last sentence of the book is politically correct pablum about respecting diversity, addressing individual needs, and cooperating for peace.

    Nevertheless, since Dr. Slipp brings such a broad academic knowledge to his writing, the book warrants the attention of those interested in an in-depth look at the interrelationships, for good or ill, of religion, politics, and power.

    “Quest for Power” is a book that needs to be digested and revisited, and perhaps viewed more as a springboard for dialogue rather than as definitive.

—

    Samuel Slipp has a house in Sag Harbor.

By Dan Giancola

    Two recently published poetry books by East Hampton Town residents merit the attention of serious poets and casual readers alike. Naomi Lazard’s “Ordinances,” winner of the 2010 ReBound Prize (Seven Kitchens Press, $7), and Fran Castan’s “Venice: City That Paints Itself” (Canio’s Editions, $30, with paintings by her husband, Lewis Zacks) should find their way into the collection of any poetry lover.

    Ms. Lazard’s chapbook is of interest primarily because of her rendering of voice. The persona of these poems appears to be an anonymous author on a government or institutional payroll. The employee’s voice is rigidly depersonalized and never questions the commands articulated for readers. The voice brims with certainty and confidence; it is the voice arising from the arrogance of power that denies responsibility for its orders and actions, the voice that can acknowledge no wrong on its own part.

    You might recognize it. It seems a conflation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Hal, Jose Saramago’s canned government instructions in “Blindness,” and W.H. Auden’s epitaph author in “The Unknown Citizen.” This public relations voice is intelligent but devoid of humanity. The carefully crafted tone of the poems, therefore, is one of sinister banality, of malevolent benevolence:

It is not our responsibility

that you don’t like your co-workers

and they don’t like you.

Nobody is here to be liked.

You must do the best you can

under the circumstances.

We try to make them better for you.

(“Ordinance on Employment”)

    Or:

Instead of the item you ordered

we are sending you something else.

It is not the same thing,

nor is it a reasonable facsimile.

It is what we have in stock,

the very best we can offer.

(“In Answer to Your Query”)

    In both examples the patriarchal voice attempts to console, but this consolation is chilling rather than cheering. The voice insists it knows better than you what is good for you. It is a voice, unfortunately, too often heard today in those institutions that seek to inform and control, that present choices where none really exist, that seem to offer freedom while enslaving us. This is the voice of modern bureaucracy that has infiltrated our daily lives.

    A book of 80 pages of poems written in this voice would have been too much. But in this chapbook of 19 poems in 26 pages, Ms. Lazard provides just enough of it to remind us that an authority’s power can be both surreal and infantilizing.

    These “Ordinances” are too ominous to be beautiful. But they are wise and useful. We need these poems today, perhaps more so than when they were last published, in that Orwellian year of 1984.

    On the other hand, Fran Castan’s lyric poems in “Venice” focus on time’s continuity and circularity reflected in canals, caught in the resounding notes of a gondolier’s song. Light and water infuse these poems and act as a form of imagination, transforming what they touch. These poems discover eternity in Venice, a timelessness that reminds us of our own mortality but salves that knowledge with the promise of immortality flickering in the scintillating light that bathes the water and washes Venetian facades.

    The past is omnipresent in these poems. The figures of Il Tintoretto, Puccini and Pavarotti, Chopin and Vivaldi, and the poet’s ancestors are muses for Ms. Castan’s meditations. For example, after seeing a rat on a stairway, the speaker of “Transients” says, “I scale the steps two at a time, / The way ancestors must have leapt over nests of rats / And I laugh to think I am urged on / By instinctive wisdom they bequeathed me / In this body they cradled into being — vibrant body / They made over thousands of years —”

    Here the ages are diminished; time vanishes as past and present are connected in the poem’s persona.

    This happens again in “The Composition of Paint.” The artists of the past, poisoned by the elements comprising their paints, are imagined returning, “Each cell . . . / will rise again as a gem / Painted back into light / Traveling now to the future / Hand of a new master.”

    Many of Ms. Castan’s images are startlingly fresh and limpid. A heel is described as “shaped like the doge’s hat,” a shadow is thrown “like black net stockings,” and breath, entering a chest, “plays the intercostals like an accordion.” This collection brims with effective figures such as these, and Ms. Castan creates a lovely, soothing music to carry them along, particularly in lines such as these that begin “Soliloquy on a Quay of the Zattere”:

Water laps the pilings,

A breeze luffs the umbrella,

An orange butterfly alights

On a cup of steamed milk

Alluring as a peony.

    The music of this collection never jangles or seems other than perfectly pitched.

    “Venice: City That Paints Itself,” it must be noted, is a gorgeous edition, and the paintings by Lewis Zacks are beautifully reproduced. The poems and paintings wonderfully complement one another. Together, they capture the waters of Venice swollen with impressionistic lights and remind us that the past is always here with us now.

—

    Naomi Lazard has had poems published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Paris Review. She is a co-founder of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

    Fran Castan is the author of “The Widow’s Quilt.” Her work has appeared in Poetry and Ms. magazine.

    Dan Giancola’s volumes of poems include “Part Mirth, Part Murder.” A professor of English at Suffolk Community College, he lives in Mastic.

Hawaiian Noodles

The Hamptons Hawaiian Saimin Shop, a pop-up restaurant, is operating out of Dopo la Spiaggia in Sag Harbor on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saimin is a Hawaiian take on Japanese ramen. The menu features saimin bowls such as chicken, vegetable, and spicy pork for $17, and offers a build-your-own option for $15. The latter includes a choice of noodle (wheat egg or gluten-free), broth (chicken, mushroom, shrimp, pork, or vegetable), and up to three toppings (including proteins such as shrimp, egg, and Spam, and vegetables such as seaweed and green onions). An additional topping is $4 for a protein and $2 for a vegetable. Also offered is a vegan burger made with shiitake mushrooms, black beans, lentils, and quinoa for $15.

Rowdy and the Oscars

The annual Oscars contest has begun at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton. Diners will receive a ballot along with their check, and those who want to participate can fill out their Oscar picks and hand the ballot to a restaurant staffer. The person who chooses the most correct winners —  which will be revealed during the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 24 — will receive a $50 gift certificate and two movie vouchers. In the case of a tie, a drawing will be held.

Gluten-Free Soup

The Golden Pear Cafe now has an expanded selection of gluten-free soups. The current menu includes chicken vegetable, Manhattan clam chowder, butternut squash and apple, vegetable and kale, split pea with ham, white bean and kale, and roasted cauliflower. A 12-ounce serving is $7.35, and a 16-ounce one is $8.25. A quart, which costs $12.99, can be ordered in advance by calling the cafes.

Whole Pig Dinner

Almond in Bridgehampton will hold a five-course whole pig dinner with wines from Macari Vineyards on Feb. 22 at 7. The menu features dishes such as pork leg confit and cheese ravioli with a spicy ragout. The cost is $65, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are by calling the restaurant.

Valentine’s Day

The Springs Tavern has a three-course prix fixe dinner special this evening. The menu features entrees such as strip steak and lobster, grilled salmon, and pasta primavera. The cost is $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are recommended.

Smokin’ Wolf Hiatus

Smokin’ Wolf in East Hampton will close for a winter vacation starting on Feb. 23. 

This Week at the Eagle

The featured artist at Wednesday’s A Night Out With event, a collaboration between the Golden Eagle Studio and Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton, will be Perry Burns, a painter and photographer. The evening starts with a hands-on workshop at 5:30 at the Golden Eagle on North Main Street and continues later with a two-course dinner at the restaurant next door. The cost is $75 and includes the art presentation and workshop, dinner, tax, and tip. Advance registration is on the store’s website; participants have until noon on Monday to register.

Books and Wine

Park Place Wines and Liquors in East Hampton and BookHampton are teaming up to hold the first in a monthly series of wine tastings and book discussions this evening at 5:30 at the wine store. Laura Donnelly, The Star’s food editor, will discuss her favorite recipes from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook, “Cook Like a Pro.” Discounts will be offered on the book and wines. Reservations are required, and can be had by calling Park Place. 

Dockside Is Back

The Dockside Bar and Grill in Sag Harbor has reopened, and is serving lunch and dinner Thursday through Monday. 

Sold Out

Tickets have sold out for the Peconic Land Trust’s spring Long Island Grown lecture series, the annual event featuring talks by East End farmers and food producers moderated by The Star’s Laura Donnelly.

When is the last time you had a vegetable puree? Have you ever made one? And how long has it been since you saw one on a menu? I’m not talking about mashed potatoes; I’m talking about carrots, celery root, beets, and cauliflower.

After mama’s milk and formula, we all begin our lives with pureed foods. When we are on the back nine of life, we may end our lives with pureed foods. That is not what I am talking about! I am talking about velvety, sophisticated, rich, and elegant purees, smooth and full of flavor and color, created to match their accompanying dishes. For instance, a cauliflower, apple, and curry puree paired with a crispy-skinned magret duck breast; beets with jalapenos and mint to go with roast pork tenderloin, or a potato puree with fruity olive oil and chopped black olives alongside a piece of fried fish.

Vegetable purees are the alpaca blanket, the cashmere sweater, of winter foods. They are comforting, classy, and elegant. The French have always adored them, and Southerners seem to like them, too, maybe because most vegetables cooked Southern-style are so overcooked they’re one step away from a puree anyway.

The late, great lifestyle guru and cookbook author Lee Bailey devoted an entire chapter to vegetable purees in his “Good Parties” cookbook, published in 1986. The 1980s were a time when vegetable purees were popular, and also the, ’70s, when nouvelle cuisine was all the rage. This was an era when French chefs such as Roger Vergé, Paul Bocuse, and Jean and Pierre Troisgros began to lighten the traditionally heavy cream, butter, and flour-laden sauces and dishes, and to concentrate and simplify flavors.

A lot of chefs make vegetable purees to use as building blocks for other dishes, or to be the colorful swoosh on the plate under your protein. David Bouley, the New York chef, makes a red wine shallot puree that becomes the secret ingredient in many of his dishes.

One of the reasons I love making vegetable purees is that they can be made way ahead of time for a dinner party and they really are foolproof. They can also be as virtuous or as rich as you wish. Another reason I love making them is to surprise friends who thought they didn’t like them. Every time I serve Daniel Boulud’s cauliflower puree, or Amanda Hesser’s “Mr. Latte’s” pea and watercress puree, people ask for the recipes. I have shared the Boulud recipe here before, so I will give an abbreviated version this time. The Amanda Hesser/Mr. Latte recipe is from an old column she wrote about the first time he cooked for her. It is a menu so safe, so WASPy, so a-cross-between-nursery-and-country-club fare that I serve it often to guests who may not be foodies or may have food issues. Yes, it involves boneless, skinned white-meat chicken and mayonnaise, and no crunch, garlic, or onions. And the guests always rave about the pea-watercress puree.

If you think you are not a puree fan, think again. I’ll bet you like hummus, pesto, refried beans, guacamole, and cream of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich, right? So you should give vegetable purees a chance. (Next I will convert you to aspics, another old-school, almost-obsolete creation that can be wonderful.)

A puree can focus on flavor of one vegetable, like carrots, or enhance and layer them, like celery root with potatoes, pear with kohlrabi, or leeks with butternut squash. Also keep the color wheel in mind. Carrots and broccoli may be tasty side by side, but puree them together and you’ll get an Army green-khaki kaka that will not convert your friends and family to vegetable purees!

As far as cooking methods, I like to steam whenever possible, rather than boil. This goes for carrots, green beans, and cauliflower. You could also roast and peel such vegetables as onions, beets, garlic, and shallots. For pureeing, you can use a blender, food processor, immersion blender, or Vitamix. (Just remember that potatoes should be mashed, not pureed, as this will make them gluey.) Don’t be shy with the salt and pepper. 

Lastly, how rich do you want your puree to be? I do add a few tablespoons of butter to a pea puree and cream to a cauliflower puree but a little bit goes a long way. Potatoes and cooked rice can also serve as thickeners. You can extend the puree into a soup by thinning it with an appropriate stock, milk, or cream. 

My diet is mostly whole grains and vegetables, not a lot of meat. So maybe that’s why I justify making my constant repertoire of vegetables occasionally a little bit naughty, and by that I mean lots of gruyere cheese on a zucchini, tomato, onion tian, or a big bunch of leeks baked with heavy cream. 

Salads are varied, crunchy, and omnipresent at my table, green beans are either al dente or Szechuan-style. Eggplant gets miso. Brussels sprouts get pancetta, garlic, and pecorino. Shredded raw carrots get cumin and lemon juice. In other words, I lean towards aggressively savory additions, international flavors, and variety. But sometimes Yotam Ottolenghi, David Chang, and the allium family don’t belong at the dinner table and Audrey Hepburn does.

Try your hand at some sophisticated yet simple purees. You will be delightfully surprised. And I was kidding about the aspics. . . .

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

The other day I woke up bright and early as is my wont. I prepared a pot of coffee, fed the dog, and had the television news on in the background. There was a breaking news announcement: A man had been arrested at his home in Fort Lauderdale. “Oh, what delicious news,” I thought to myself. “This calls for some freshly baked bread, sliced and toasted, spread with Kerrygold butter. And perhaps some fig jam.” Seriously, this is how my mind works. Good news? That calls for comfort food. Bad news?  THAT calls for comfort food.

Good bread, with good butter, is truly one of life’s most basic, fundamental, and simplest of pleasures. It’s a pity that a lot of people nowadays shun it, or believe they are allergic to gluten. Homemade bread is especially great because it is inexpensive to make and fun to do with children. It does require some time, elbow grease, and a little bit of experience, though.

I used to be a pastry chef, but bread was not part of my repertoire. I was tasked with feeding and keeping alive a sourdough mother, but the baking of the bread was done later in the day by the head chef. I made the occasional batch of Parker House rolls doused in Old Bay seasoning butter, and that’s about it. At home I can bake a simple white loaf. I never owned a bread machine when that was a fad and I never thought anyone’s bread that came out of that machine was very good.

All you need to bake bread is flour (bread flour is preferable but all purpose will do), yeast, water, and salt. A bit of sugar is optional. If you have a standing mixer with a bread hook, your bread making will be a hundred times easier. If you have a gas oven, you will also have the perfect location for dough to rise. You can speed up this process and slow it down, depending on your schedule and needs. The first rising usually takes one to two hours, the second rising about 45 minutes to an hour. To slow the rising, just put the dough in the refrigerator. When we were little and had just moved to Virginia from California, our best friends and neighbors and carpool mates were the Yarmolinskys. Their mom, Harriet, would drive around with a bowl of bread dough on the seat next to her so she could punch it down when the time came. What a cool hippie-dippy mom!

The only kind of bread I make with any frequency besides plain white yeast bread is soda bread. This is super easy. It is pretty much foolproof, and you’re still making homemade bread! As far as toppings go, I have a ridiculously varied selection of jams, jellies, and preserves. My favorite is black raspberry, which isn’t easy to find. After that, strawberry, raspberry, apricot, blueberry, marionberry, peach, beach plum, orange marmalade, and fig jam are my go-tos. I also love any kind of honey and the occasional nostalgic cinnamon sugar topping. 

I am also a butter snob. For general baking I’ll use any stick butter like Breakstone, but for spreading on good bread (or vegetables or rice), I insist on Kerrygold, Plugra, President, Echire, Beurre D’Isigny, or any of those other fancy foreign butters. They are worth the extra expense. Whether you choose sweet or salted butter is a personal preference. I like salted. It also stays fresh longer because the salt acts as a preservative. There is nothing worse than old, rancid-tasting butter.

If you want to get serious about bread baking, a good book to start with would be “Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast” by Ken Forkish. I also really like James Beard’s “Beard on Bread,” written in 1973. I inherited a copy from my parents’ dear friends Kay and Berton Roueche. It is full of stains and scribbles and stars and underlinings. Mr. Beard’s writing style is cozy and conversational and you find out very quickly that there is nothing he loves more than white bread and butter tea sandwiches, with perhaps a big thick slice of raw onion in them!

One thing you will notice about homemade bread is how long it lasts. I keep mine out on the counter, loosely wrapped, for several days. If I’m not using it, I will wrap it up tightly in plastic, then foil, then label it and freeze it until needed. Do not freeze bread for a long time; it is too delicate.

We are lucky out here to have amazing local breads like Carissa’s. I also like Blue Duck for simple loaves, Eli’s for raisin walnut, and Marie Eiffel on Shelter Island for a pretty good French-style baguette. But why not try your hand at baking your own? Start with a basic recipe such as the following one from the King Arthur Flour company or make a soda bread so you’ll be a pro by St. Patrick’s Day in March. 

I’d like to end this column with a poem by my late friend E.J. Mudd. It says it all.

Bread

Mix flour, water, yeast and salt.

If the phone rings, don’t answer.

Your fingers are a sticky mess.

Let dough rise in a nice, warm place.

If the phone rings, don’t answer.

You’re creating.

Knead till satiny. Divide into loaves.

If the phone rings, don’t answer.

You’re sculpting.

Bake in hot oven till crisp and brown.

If the phone rings, don’t answer.

You’re in aromatherapy.

Take out and eat a piece at once.

If the phone rings, don’t answer.

You’re in heaven.

Panis AngelicusToasted homemade bread with raspberry jam is one of life’s most fundamental pleasures.    Laura Donnelly

CLICK FOR RECIPES