Preface to the Revised Edition

The saying goes, “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shall find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1), and now I can say I think I understand what that means. We, that is my wife Susan and I, have come full circle since the original publication of Brother Juniper’s Bread Book: Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor in 1991. The bread we cast then has now found us, even brought us, to new circumstances with a lot of water having flown under the proverbial bridge. Let me explain:

When I first wrote the book, we were living in a semi-monastic community of Eastern Orthodox Christians, running a restaurant and bakery called Brother Juniper’s Café. We are still active members of the Eastern Orthodox Church but are now living on our own, no longer using the honorifics Brother Peter or Sister Susan, though some people still call us by those names. We sold Brother Juniper’s in 1993. It is still a thriving bakery in Northern California with widespread distribution. That wonderful Celtic multi-grain harvest bread, struan, our most important contribution to the growing American bread movement, is still the best selling bread in the Brother Juniper’s product line. We moved on, following the breadcrumb trail that seemed to unfold before us, and not only witnessed an amazing renaissance in bread but also had the opportunity to study and chronicle it. More importantly, I have had the privilege of teaching the next generation of bakers everything I learned through subsequent books as well as via teaching positions at two of our country’s finest culinary schools.