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Book Review of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
c-squared avatar reviewed on + 181 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 11


I "read" this book as much as you can read what is essentially a cook book with a lot of fascinating and hilarious introductions and clarification.

Finding herself without a job, Reese decided to try making a whole lot of stuff that we typically buy at the grocery store: bread and butter, as the title suggests, along with a whole slew of other items like cheese, corn dogs, cured meats, salad dressing, jams, etc. Based on the cost, taste, and work involved, this book contains her recommendations of what is worth making and what you should just buy pre-made, along with recipes for those things worth making, or at least attempting to make.

Her accounts of raising chickens (which I have done, although not to the same scale) and bees (which my husband wants to do) are hilarious.

I tried her "apple crisp pie" recipe (although I did not make my own pie crust as she recommends, because I had a pre-made crust in the refrigerator) and it was delicious. So was her pesto recipe made with walnuts instead of the usual pine nuts (she says you can use either, but walnuts are cheaper and I'm not crazy about pine nuts).

I picked this book out of the new book section of the library, but definitely want my own copy.