We are pleased to announce that the inaugural Edible Books selection is 
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese.
The author shares her journey through a series of kitchen-experiments including homemade peanut butter, bread, junk foods, and more ambitious projects like cured meats and cheese. She then offers her assessment of each experiment: make or buy?
Reading this book should tickle the inner mad-scientist in all of us, inspire some reflection on our individual make vs. buy decision algorithms, and maybe even spark a few debates amongst those of us who already have strong opinions on topics such as: Peanut butter—crunchy or smooth?
Happy reading, and we look forward to a spirited discussion. ~Christina & Natalie
Below is the October discussion schedule:
- October 1st-7th: Discuss Introduction-Chapter 5
- October 8th-14th: Discuss Chapters 6-10
- October 15th-21st: Discuss Chapters 11-15
- October 22nd-31st: Discuss Chapters 16-20
Find us on Twitter @ediblebookclub #ediblebooks
Please note: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese is presently available in the UK in Hardcover, on Kindle and other eReaders, a paperback edition is due out shortly.
If you need more information about Edible Books, please read the participation guidelines here.
One thing I always admire is people who can remake themselves, and the first thing I liked about this book was that Jennifer Reese wrote it in response to losing her job. Why just cry about a change like that, turn it into a bestselling cookbook.
She also has a similar attitude about the do it yourself project as my wife and I do. It’s great to save some money by doing it yourself, but also consider the hassle involved, and does it taste good too ?
Her wit and humor comes through on just about ever page. A book like this could have been very dry and clinical, but it’s not a text filled with lists of economic benefits of doing things yourself, nor does it read like a lab manual on how to replicate commercially available products. She writes about her successes and failures, and doesn’t take the project so seriously that she is not going to have fun with it.
In her chapter in bread, she writes how you don’t have to be a 60′s style hippie to make bread; “And I will attest that you don’t have to look like a Vermeer to make bread. You can look like an R. Crumb and smoke Parliaments while drinking Sanka spike with Jim Beam, and still bake amazing bread”.
Sometimes I disagree with her about the hassle involved, she does seem to have a much lower hassle threshold than I do. But then again, I’m not doing most of the cooking, I’m just an assistant to my wife and three year old son.
Our most recent recipe was from chapter 1, bagels. Definitely worthwhile to make them yourself, they did taste better home made. Though we’ll have to try them again some time since I may have taken them out of the oven too soon! Still good, but we’ll have to try again, maybe next time we’ll add some raisins and cinnamon.
Here’s a link to the post http://www.sofacents.com/make-bread/
Hello, thank you for your comment and welcome.
I absolutely agree with you about the humour I have been laughing along with her. I love the fact she isn’t sugar coating it and is happy to admit that some things are hard work and can be costly – this particularly came through when she was talking about the chickens.
My hassle threshold is not that high either and I have not always been in agreement with her on some things but I guess it is all down to how much time you have spare and how you divide that time up. I am fairly sure that Christina will be making more from the book than I will be, she is pretty keen on making cheese and yogurt for one. I, on the other hand, am happy to leave that to someone else.
I am still quite disturbed about the frozen PB&J sandwiches. I have never seen a frozen sandwich in the UK apart from ice-cream ones.
Again, welcome to book club and enjoy the rest of the book.
Natalie.
If and when we ever move to a place with a bigger yard, my wife is going to start a beehive. So she likes the book quite a bit as well!
Frozen PB&J is just the tip of the iceberg! There’s all sorts of weird packaged foods here. There are packages of cheese, meat and crackers which I guess are supposed to make it easier to pack lunches for the kids. Though I wonder what is in that meat and cheese that they can sit in a box in the cracker aisle!
You have to wonder. We have similar things but they are at least in the chilled foods section.
Christina here–I’ve fantasized about bees, too!
One of the most interesting aspects of this book discussion has been the differences between what UK readers and US readers consider “normal” food, or at least recognizable as food. I think we can all agree on the horrors of frozen PB&J sandwiches, though!
I just saw that there are now bags of frozen pasta with sauce in the frozen food section. I guess it is too hard to cook some pasta and pour some sauce from a jar on it. Worst, at least worst tasting, must be the microwave brownie mixes, with their metallic/plastic/medicine taste. Brownies must be one of the easiest things to make, but instead I would want to eat something that tastes like chocolate flavored slabs of Listerine?
Haven’t made a lot from the next group of chapters yet. One thing I noticed is that she is a bit more hesitant in making a roast chicken than I would have thought. Seems as though the issue is that she doesn’t really like disposing of the waste. I’m not a big fan of handling the waste either, but what we try to do is make chicken stock with what’s left over when we roast a whole chicken.
I do agree with her on making pesto. Very easy, and so much less expensive than buying it. Basil is very easy to grow, almost like a weed. By late Summer there is plenty of basil to make pesto or to use to flavor other dishes. This is the second year that we tried growing basil. The results were much better this year than last, we were much more careful in watering the plants this year! We planted two large containers with the seeds this spring. Though we were hit with some cold weather before I could harvest all that I could have, so we were able to get only four pesto sauce meals out of the crop. Though at about $7 for a small jar of pesto, it was still worth it for the amount that we were able to use.
I have never made my own pesto but our local coffee shop does so I buy it from there for half the price of the mass produced supermarket stuff. I enjoyed the chicken chapter, I rarely make a whole roast chicken as free range ones are so expensive for even a small one but when I do I make stock or soup with the leftovers. Thanks for your comment.
Natalie.