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44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite Read of 2009, September 10, 2009
This review is from: Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman's Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker (Hardcover)
I work in a bookstore and read soooooooooo many books that and often I lose interest and toss the book aside to move on to the next one.
Well. I LOVED this book. I read it in two days and found myself making home made bread and vanilla cake (which was THE BEST EVER).
This is the story of Sandra Bullocks's sister, Gesine, who worked in Hollywood for her sisters production company and gave up a career most American's would drool over. Famous Stars - check! Fabulous clothes - check! Lunch/dinner dates - check!
First class travel - check!
Gesine chucked all the "phoniness" of LA to follow her passion for baking and ended up opening her own bakery - due mainly to an offhand comment her sister made about Gesine's fabulous macaroons.
If you love to bake (or eat) hurry and place your order for this book. If you're not a foodie but your doing a job that drains you and long to do something else, buy this book!
It's a heartfelt, easy, inspiring, read.
Truly the best book I've read all year. I will not be loaning my copy to ANYONE. And I rarely keep books I read (I usually pass them on). I have ONE SHELF that holds favorite books (6 in all) - and this takes first place.
Did I mention I LOVED this book! Funny. Heartwarming. Inspiring. Funny.
And there's recipes!!!!
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Confection of Cookbook and Memoir, August 16, 2009
This review is from: Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman's Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker (Hardcover)
Fresh out of law school and hanging out in L.A., Gesine's sister hits the big time, and she becomes an executive at her newly formed production company. Several years later, her very health-conscious mother dies from colon cancer. Hit hard by the loss, she finds herself channeling her grief into baking. Day after day she produces popular treats in a fashion that renders even the most congealed L.A-weary hearts putty in her hands, working out her angst into heavenly macaroons. After realizing that she was profoundly unhappy in the biz and always would be, she takes off for Montpelier, Vermont, and sets up shop. There she finds the kitchen a haven from the unplesantness she experienced in Hollywood, and falls passionately in love with what she does.
Including wondrous nostalgia for the ways of her mother and grandmother, Gesine takes the reader through the world of her childhood in Austria and Germany and along the way, ending each chapter with a recipe that makes you want to run to the store and start baking like mad. The Golden Eggs recipe--for a simple yellow cake that tastes just like donuts--is not to be missed, nor all the recipes for truly divine German treats. She really cares about what she does, and it shows.
Now this is not a touchy-feely heroine who throws rose-petals at your face because she's found her own happiness--she's not the touchy-feely type--she's a self-confessed misanthrope who is usually way too blunt and socially inept for most people's taste. She initially loves the kitchen for its anonymity and not having to deal with people, which is what I like best about this book--it displays a remarkable honesty about her own character and who she is and why she does what she does--baking is the best way she has of expressing goodness to the world, and although she feels like she's never fit in, she finds that through her gift she becomes an integral part of people's lives in her new home town. This is because (oh, and I love her for this) good treats matter, dammit, so put down that Twinkie and have a piece of properly made cake! Now!
So if you're into baking or just want a good quick yet insightful read about finding what's true for you in your life, then this is the book for you and your book group. Gesine's no poet--the language is very plain spoken and blunt--but she wrote a book packed with meaning and self-truth that I loved. A real treat, inside and out. I'm truly glad to have read it.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Delicious Book, January 14, 2010
This review is from: Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman's Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker (Hardcover)
Gesine Bullock-Prado lives the life that I am living in quiet desperation. Her bakery is the bakery of my dreams, her life the one of my aspirations. I, too, am a closet baker, giving love and affection to whoever will appreciate the time and care that go into a perfect chocolate chip cookie, a decadent double chocolate brownie pie, or anything else baked in my tiny kitchen in upstate New York. Gesine's road from Hollywood to Vermont makes perfect sense to anyone who dreams in sugar, flour and butter...and often chocolate, too. Her autobiographical story of lawyer to baker truly is well written and understandable, funny and intellectual...and then there are the RECIPES: almost as many as in any cookbook, but woven in as part of a story from a European-flavored childhood (Apfelkuchen and Zwetschgendatschi) to the very adult Devil's Cream Pie and Espresso Cheesecake. Can't wait to try them all. I loved reading this book and am thrilled to add it to my collection of special cookbooks that tell their own story. Please get this book; Gesine's story will make you laugh and will touch your heart.
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