October 3, 2005 - 8:04pm
Village Baker
I received the following question via email:
Please !!! Did anyone buy THE VILLEGE BAKER by ORTIZ Is it a
great book???!!! some of your thoughts, coments!!! Ive got the
Bakers Apprentice, Can u compare them hotbred!!! thank you
I did a review of it a while back. I don't think the recipes are quite as well adapted for a new baker as the BBA, but it is still a tour de force and definitely one that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone serious about artisan baking (though, I'll admit, I don't own it yet).
Anyone else?
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I don't have this book, but I do have "The Village Bakers Wife"
written by Joe Ortiz wife, and I was not impressed one bit.
qahtan
I adapted a couple of recipes and put them on my bread-blog site http://www.idunno.de (I just recently switched from German to English to make it world-friendlier).
The book has a lot of information, but a lot of it is either written in a very confusing way or the exact amounts in baker's percentages are missing or incorrect. Sometimes percentages are given, then sometimes they are not. Oh mysteries of the world....
The book just needs editing.
However, if you are fluent in sourdough-bread-techniques and know how to spot an error, it offers great insight especially into regional French baking traditions.
Nice site. I added a link in the links section, which is a mess and needs to be reorganized, but people do still look through there.
Thanks for adding it. I'm glad I can contribute to the shared wisdom of home bakers.