Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me start with a summary. My Bread is a great cookbook about making artisan bread, thin crust pizza, and sandwiches. The instruction is clear, the recipe is practical and super easy, and the picture is beautiful. You also get a bonus section about the author's personal story in developing his career and famed no-knead method. I love this book and highly recommend it to everyone. I like bread, especially good quality artisan bread. I like getting my hands dirty, both in the laboratory and in my kitchen. But, as a Taiwanese biologist, I have no cultural background, professional training, or family tradition in making bread, so I didn't even think about doing it before. Until somewhere in 2009, I learned about Jim Lahey's no-knead, slow fermentation, and baking in an oven-within-an-oven method. (Thanks to Mark Bittman for New York Times and Internet!) I just tried it using my Pyrex bowl. The result was a big surprise and very successful! I started making bread regularly. I shared my bread with friends including Americans, a Brazilian, Chinese, and an Italian. They all like it and cannot believe that this bread is not purchased from stores. So, if I, a guy with no cultural background and no family tradition in bread, can use this method to make great artisan bread in his little kitchen, anyone can do it! Someone has commented that it is a one-trick thing, so if you've known this technique beforehand (like myself), you don't need this book. I DISAGREE. I got this book after I've produced about 30 loafs with experimenting add-in ingredients, but Lahey's book still provides me with good recipe for different bread variations and interesting ideas. I tried several already; I like some better than others, but they all taste pretty good. Not to mention the pizza section he put together. He told you how to handle the dough in a baking sheet, and he taught you how to make pizza that the simple topping comes in balance with the thin, crispy crust. I've made pizza funghi, pizza cipolla, and pizza patate accordingly. Oh, they are so good. The final two chapters are about "The Art of the Sandwich" and "Stale Bread". In addition to panini recipes, Lahey also included a quite comprehensive coverage of making "homemade sandwich ingredients" (such as roast beef, aioli, pickles, and mustard) from scratch! Doesn't it sound interesting? The last section gives some idea to use leftover bread that is too hard to use as sandwich or snacks. I have not tried any yet. I definitely will try them out when I have time. I found that Amazon.com has this "customer images" feature on every product page, and here for My Bread it has become a showcase of no-knead bread that people made. Not to repeat the awesome round loaf, I uploaded pictures of three other types of bread/pizza that I made following the recipe from the book: stecca (p.77), pizza bianca and sweet variation (pp.137 and 139), and pizza cipolla (p.134). I hope you can get some idea of what this book can offer. It's true that there is one major technique, but My Bread is definitely not just a one-trick book. It tells me how to make good bread and pizza. I enjoy My Bread (and my bread) very much. I hope you can also enjoy the same satisfaction of making YOUR bread. This is why I wrote this lengthy comment here.