"With verbal descriptions that burst on the tongue and recipes that your hands itch to try, this beautiful book is food for the soul." —Jodi Picoult, New York Times–bestselling author of Small Great Things

"I bake because it connects my soul to my hands, and my heart to my mouth." —Martin Philip

Yearning for creative connection, Martin Philip traded his finance career in New York City for an entry-level baker position at King Arthur Flour in rural Vermont. The passionate amateur baker worked his way up, eventually becoming head bread baker. But Philip is not just a talented craftsman; he is a bread shaman. Being a baker isn't just mastering the chemistry of flour, salt, water, and yeast; it is being an alchemist—perfecting the transformation of simple ingredients into an elegant expression of the soul.

Breaking Bread is an intimate tour of Philip's kitchen, mind, and heart. Through seventy-five original recipes and life stories told with incandescent prose, he shares not only the secrets to creating loaves of unparalleled beauty and flavor but the secrets to a good life. From the butter biscuits, pecan pie, and whiskey bread pudding of his childhood in the Ozarks to French baguettes and focaccias, bagels and muffins, cinnamon buns and ginger scones, Breaking Bread is a guide to wholeheartedly embracing the staff of life.

Exquisite, sensuous, and delectable, Breaking Bread inspires us to take risks, make bolder choices, live more fully, and bake bread and break it with those we love.

"The recipes are sound; the storytelling - evocative; the pictures - illustrative, beautiful." —Steven Satterfield, James Beard award-winning chef and author of Root to Leaf