The title of this book promises that it will make bread baking easy. Let me explain.

                  “Easy” means that with very few exceptions, the recipes can be completed in minimal time. None requires highly specialized equipment or exceptional talent. While a few basic utensils are necessary, they are all items you probably have in your kitchen anyway; there are no machines required. This is plain and simple bread making the way your forebears did it long before you were born, and the directions are clear and direct so that you can follow them even if you’re a novice.

            Although the recipes are simple, the breads are not. The best bakeries feature “artisan” bread—that’s the kind I make, and you can make, too. An artisan by definition is “a skilled manual worker,” so artisan breads are those that are skillfully made by hand. The skill comes with surprisingly little experience, and once you have learned a few basics and embellished them with your own creativity, you will be able to make magnificent breads that are a joy to create, to behold, and especially, to eat.

            Baking bread is a craft, a means of unlimited personal expression even though every baker follows certain age-old steps. It’s a particularly rewarding craft because in addition to the pleasure of making the bread itself, when you are done, you will have the even greater pleasure of feeding it to the people you love.

            And the people you love will love your bread, and will love taking part in the baking, too. Invite your friends, your spouse, your children into the kitchen. Give any kid, of any age, a lump of dough to knead and form into a loaf of bread, and you will all have a grand time. Guaranteed!

            So get ready to bake bread—after brushing up on a bit of history in the opening chapter. All you really need to begin is some flour, and water, and yeast. As soon as you mix them together, you will be creating a kind of magic by connecting to the continuous chain of civilization and culture that began in the mists of the past, long, long before any history had ever been recorded.