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Judith Ryan Hendricks was born in San Jose,
California, when the Santa Clara Valley was better known for its orchards than for computer chips. Armed with a degree in journalism, she worked as a journalist, copywriter,
computer instructor, travel agent, waitress and baker before turning to fiction
writing. Her experiences at the McGraw Street Bakery in Seattle became her first novel, Bread Alone.
A life-long infatuation with the Southwest was the inspiration for Isabel’s
Daughter, and her third novel, The Baker’s Apprentice, is a sequel to
Bread Alone. Her fourth book, The Laws of Harmony, was published
in February, 2009; Hendricks’ fiction has been translated into 11
languages and distributed in more than 15 countries worldwide. She and her
husband Geoff now live in New Mexico.
Judith Ryan Hendricks's website
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How did you learn to bake bread?
Even though I worked in a bakery, I never made bread there. I learned to make
bread by reading and experimenting, beginning in the '70s. When I first
graduated from college, I lived in New Orleans for a few years and I got very
into cooking -- mostly gourmet, very complicated, almost ritualistic recipes.
Baguettes were the bread of choice then. When I moved to Texas, I simultaneously
discovered the women's movement, which was trying to get women away from being
kitchen slaves, and the trend towards whole/natural foods. I began baking the
kind of bread that Wyn describes when she talks about "throwing every grain
they could find into the mix." It was healthy bread, but some of those
loaves were regular little bricks. On a trip to France I discovered what I now
think of as "real" bread in all its glory. I came back and started
trying to recreate it. I just kept reading and experimenting -- and of course,
books on bread kept getting better as bakers rediscovered the old ways to make
artisan bread.
Where did you get the title for your book, and why?
One of my favorite bread books is Bread Alone, by Daniel Leader and
Judith Blahnik. I think that was always in the back of ...
Erica Bauermeister is the author of The School of Essential Ingredients (Jan 2009), a novel about eight students and their cooking teacher set in a restaurant kitchen. Her non-fiction work includes 500 Great Books by Women: A... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Bread Alone
Try:
The School of Essential Ingredients
by Erica Bauermeister
Amanda Davis was raised in Durham, North Carolina. She was tragically killed in a plane crash on her way to her childhood state where she was scheduled to promote her debut novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me, published in ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Isabel's Daughter
Try:
Wonder When You'll Miss Me
by Amanda Davis
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