Barbara ONeal - How to Bake a Perfect Life

The Lost Recipe for Happiness

The Lost Recipe for Happiness is a delectable banquet for the reader. This book is as delicious as the recipes interspersed throughout an unforgettable story.

S USAN W IGGS , New York Times bestselling author

The Lost Recipe for Happiness is utterly magical and fantastically sensual. Its as dark and deep and sweet as chocolate. I want to live in this book. A total triumph.

S ARAH A DDISON A LLEN , New York Times bestselling author

Beautiful writing, good storytelling and an endearing heroine set against the backdrop of Aspen, Colorado, are highlights of ONeals novel. A tale that intertwines food, friendship, passion and love in such a delectable mix is one to truly savor until the very last page.

Romantic Times

Will appeal to womens fiction fans and foodies, who will enjoy the intriguing recipes laced through the book.

St. Petersburg Times

The Secret of Everything

ONeal has created a powerful and intriguing story rich in detailed and vivid descriptions of the Southwest.

Booklist

Readers will identify with this story and the multilayered characters. And with some of the tantalizing recipes for dishes served at the 100 Breakfasts Caf included, ONeal provides a feast not only for the imagination but the taste buds as well.

Romantic Times

Barbara ONeal has masterfully woven local culture, the beauty of nature, her love of food and restaurants, and a little romance into this magnificent novel.

Fresh Fiction

Sourdough starteror mother dough, as it is knownis made from wild yeast that lives invisibly in the air. Each sponge is different, according to the location where it is born, the weather, the time of its inception, and the ingredients used to create it. A mother dough can live for generations if properly tended and will shift and grow and transform with time, ingredients, and the habits of the tender.

The Boudin mother dough used to create the famously sour San Francisco bread was already fifty years old when it was saved from the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 by Louise Boudin, who carried the mother dough to Golden Gate Park in a wooden bucket. There it was packed in ice and used to make bread daily until a new bakery could be built at its current location. The mother dough, now more than 150 years old, is stored in a vault, like a wild beast, and bread is made from it every day.

W hen the phone call that we have been dreading comes, my daughter and I are gathered around the center island of my bakery kitchen. Sofia is leafing through a magazine, the slippery pages floating down languidly, one after the next.

I am experimenting with a new sourdough starter in an attempt to reproduce a black bread I tasted at a bakery in Denver a couple of weeks ago. This is not my own, treasured starter, handed down from my grandmother Adelaides line and known to be more than a hundred years old. That mother dough, as it is called, has won my breads some fame, and I guard it jealously.

This new starter has been brewing for nearly ten days. I began with boiled potatoes mashed in their water then set aside in a warm spot. Once the starter began to brew and grow, I fed it daily with rye flour, a little whole wheat and malt sugar, and let it ferment.

On this languid May afternoon, I hold the jar up to examine it. The sponge is alive and sturdy, bubbling with cultures. A thick layer of dark brown hooch, the liquid alcohol generated by the dough, stands on top. When I pull loose wrap off the top of the bottle and stick my nose in, it is agreeably, deeply sour. I shake the starter, stick my pinkie finger in, taste it. Mmm. Perfect.

Sofia doesnt get as worked up over bread as I do, though she is a passable baker. She smiles, and her hand moves over her belly in a slow, warm way. Welcoming. Its her left hand, the one with the wedding setdiamond engagement ring, gold band. The baby is due in less than eight weeks. Her husband is in Afghanistan.

We have not heard from him in four days.

I remember when her small body was curled up beneath my ribs, when I thought I was going to give her away, when the feeling of her moving inside of me was both a terror and a wonder. If only I could keep her that safe now.

The bakery is closed for the day. Late-afternoon sunshine slants in through the windows and boomerangs off the stainless steel so intensely that I have to keep moving around the big center island to keep it out of my eyes. The kneading machines are still as I stir together starter and molasses, water and oil and flour, until its a thick mass I can turn out onto the table with a heavy splat. Plunging my hands into the dark sticky blob, I scatter the barest possible amounts of rye flour over it, kneading it in a bit at a time. The rhythm is steady, smooth. It has given me enviable muscles in my arms.