Shelley Workinger Welcomes Rob McKean

A Food Essay about Mending What Is Broken

“The fragrance of freshly milled wheat berries has a depth and liveliness unlike anything else, flowery, sweet, beery, faintly green and earthy. As the grain shatters beneath the grating stones and the new flour empties from the mill, an aromatic dust cloud wafts up speaking of a symbiotic relationship between human and grain that reaches back thousands of years. Peter Sanguedolce, who eats too much because he loves food too much, who eats too much to escape the sorrows that engulf him, who eats too much simply to eat too much, finds himself in Mending What Is Broken bewitched by the complicated, painstaking process of baking whole grain sourdough bread: nursing the starter into life, invigorating the preferment over several days, mixing flour and water and waiting through the autolyse period for the flour to hydrate, incorporating the flour and preferment and performing a series of stretches and folds to tease out the gluten…” READ THE FULL ESSAY.

Love Reading and Food? Visit a foodrific blog.

More From the Blog

Mass Cultural Council Grant for Literature

I'm excited to have received a Grant for Creative Individuals for Literature from the Mass Cultural Council. I'm incredibly grateful for their support of my work and the arts community across Massachusetts, and I am honored to be in such good company among so many...

Atlas, Three Score and Ten – Beloit Fiction Journal

A man with three daughters has many worries, opens the story of Rostislav Kazlov, third in line in his family's dynasty of Ganaego’s strongest men. And worries, especially about his youngest daughter Zoya, who is on her second ill-fated marriage, are what keep...

Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist

I am thrilled to announce that my book, Mending What Is Broken, has been selected as a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the General Fiction/Novel (70,000 to 100,000 words) category. I am deeply grateful for the support of my readers, friends, and...