I've been gratified by the media attention the new book is getting and just want to make note of a few articles and interviews here.
Tim Carman of the Washington Post visited me in my home kitchen while I mixed, shaped and baked some breads and wrote about the process here, which was a bit awkward for me.
““Whenever I bake more than my usual couple of loaves, I really have to focus, because it’s not my usual routine,” Fromartz says. “Just having multiple people in the kitchen was a challenge.”
That awkward, specimen-under-a-microscope feeling is common among journalists who find themselves on the other side of the reporter’s notebook. But the situation is compounded for Fromartz: As he explains in his brilliant new memoir/breadmaking book, “In Search of the Perfect Loaf” (Viking), “baking was the antithesis of writing, my version of chopping wood, crucial to maintaining my sanity amid the daily pressure of work. Cordoned off from writing, baking offered a brief reprieve, and for many years I sought to keep it that way.””
In some ways this book has thrust me down a new path with my baking, but still, at home, I bake quietly just as I've been doing for years.
The book, though, brought a new depth to the process and I explain some of the themes here on KPBS in San Diego.