Winter Notes

Upcoming Workshops, Books to Read, and One to Write

I hope this finds you well and getting ready to celebrate whatever your cherish at the end of a year.

For me, I try to celebrate easy gratitude in each day: hot coffee, warm bread, the cold pages of a letter I need, errr want, to write. Defining myself by what I have, not by what I don’t, is the beautiful medicine of this exercise.

We live in a time of overwhelming upheaval, anger, strife, and division. We live, as ever, in life. I am sad, dismayed, and despairing of the news and its reality. But I choose to stay connected to the durable moments: a stranger’s laughter, a playground of happy kids reminding us to stop being adults, more warm bread. That’s not ignorance, or cowardice. I think it’s courage—because it’s so damn hard to notice those moments.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who reads this and any Substack out there. Taking the time to do so is an act of gratitude, a strengthening of those durable moments, however innocuous it may seem. It means the world to me, especially, because I’ve always believed that the purpose of bread–and art, and food–is not to tear down the walls between us. It’s to prove that, if we look close enough, they don’t exist.

Some news:

I read too much. But some recent books of acute beauty and haunting power have been Sabrina Orah Mark's Happily and Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time. Reading them over and over is maybe why I can’t get to that letter. Please get copies and check out Sabrina’s Substack.

Also, I’ve got two incredible workshops coming up.

Recent workshop I co-taught at Brooklyn Granary and Mill (one of the best bakeries in the country) with Natasha Pickowicz (the best pastry chef in the country)

The first is in Vancouver from January 15-17. I’ll be hosted by two of the best bakers in Canada and we’re calling the class Friends and Neighbors-North American Whole Grain Baking. It will be a tariff-free space.

The second is in Tokyo from March 17-18. Hosted by the Ecole de Patisserie, this will be a workshop exploring the heirloom grains and stone milled flours of Japan. Enrollment is open to any baker—primary instruction will be in English with Japanese translation. Please contact me for more info.

Lastly, I’m excited and grateful (there’s that word again) to announce that I’m working on a book proposal. I’ve signed with an agent and we’ll be sending it out after the New Year. This book is the longest loaf of bread I’ve ever fermented—bubbling away for about sixteen years—and it wouldn’t have gone anywhere without you, yeah you, being here, reading this, now. Thank you from the very top of this old year. See you in the New.

My daughter Camille, who I cannot believe will be four right after the New Year.