Welcome to my Notebook.

I have always kept notebooks. They’re where I work out my ideas and record my thoughts. My older notebooks are the archetype of 90s California teen existence, full of song and poem fragments and doodles of waves. My college notebooks record ideas for the school paper and documentation of road, train and bike trips. My notebooks now are full of bread formulas and sketches of daydream cakes.

This Substack is my way of sharing pages of my notebook with you. You’ll find about half-and-half recipes and ruminations. Once or twice a week, you’ll get the newsletter in your inbox. I don’t publish on a schedule, but when I have something good to share. All new material is free for two months. After two months, archives go behind a paywall. I want everything to be accessible to everyone for a reasonable period at first, but the recipes especially take a lot of time and labor and putting them behind a paywall lets people have access to a body of writing and recipes while supporting me to produce new ones. If you would like access to the archives or just to a particular recipes without a paid subscription, please just send me a note.

A little bit about me: I am a bread baker by trade. I spent the past ten years working at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, starting as a pastry assistant and finishing as the head of bread for all locations. I studied writing in college and have come to work at the intersection of my two great loves, words and bread. I bake the same classic Tartine country loaf a few times a week, and am very interested in the practice of making the same thing over and over again and observing the study of small shifts and changes throughout the year, according to seasons, batches of flour, or small changes in my mixing style or fermentation management. I also love to make cakes, pies and cookies that are rooted in whole or heirloom grains, classic techniques and seasonal flavors. You’ll find recipes and ruminations about all of those things in my notes.

Another big part of opening up my notebook to everyone is to start conversations. I love to hear from you. Please comment, share, or write to me.

xo

j