James Beard Awards Now Has Bread Category

[BakerAunt]

It's about time!

https://www.eater.com/23387144/james-beard-foundation-2023-category-changes-bread-cookbooks-outstanding-bakery

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[aaronatthedoublef]

Maybe bread was too pedestrian for them before.

[Mike Nolan]

I think their reasoning is that the number of good new cookbooks each year is increasing, 'Baking and Desserts' has become a very comprehensive and active topic, so maybe spinning off bread into a separate category will give more books in various baking-related subjects a better chance to be honored for their excellence. How much of that increase is the impact of the pandemic is unclear, maybe the number of bread books will taper off again.

I keep looking at a recent Beard winner, Kristina Cho's book "Moon Cakes and Milk Bread" on Amazon, but I'm already out of bookshelf space, having cookbooks in three separate parts of the house! And the question is, would I really make more than one or two recipes out of it?

[BakerAunt]

I'm thinking about Emma Zimmerman's The Miller's Daughter. I do not live close enough to any bookstore to check it out. I rejected buying Mother Grains because of the author's insistence on butter. My cookbooks are in two locations--a large bookcase in the kitchen (and yes, that limited cabinet space and storage), and two bookcases in our Annex.

[Mike Nolan]

There's a preview of Zimmerman's book on Google, with the frontispieces, the table of contents and several pages of the first chapter on how they restored an old mill. No recipes in the preview, so I can't assess its value as a cookbook.

[BakerAunt]

One review mentioned that there are no bread recipes, although there is a cinnamon roll recipe. It would not belong in the James Beard Bread category.

I went to the Hayden Mills site and browsed the recipes there. If they reflect what is in the cookbook, I am not sure that I would use it that much.

I also noted the price of Hayden Mills flours. They make Bob's Red Mill look inexpensive.

[Mike Nolan]

A lot of small independent mills have high prices online, their prices may be better if you're close enough to buy on site and in large quantity.

Shipping costs are a killer these days, I looked at some flour lately and the shipping costs were higher than the cost of the flour.

When I was at the grocery store today, 5 pound bags of King Arthur flours were $6.49.

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