Books I am reading

This is a quick post to let you know about a couple of the crafty books by my bed at the moment. The first one is called Bread Matters: How and why to make your own by Andre Whitley. I have been making my own bread for a while, mainly because I find it a little terrifying how long a loaf of store bought bread will last, staying as soft as the day you brought it for weeks. What are they putting in there? This book is particularly good as it has an extensive section on how modern bread is made and why it is not good for us. Two big things I took away from this was, that you can not trust the ingredients listed on the packaging, as enzymes do not need to be listed. Now apart from the emerging science that some of these are bad for us, some enzymes are derived from animal products, meaning vegetarians aren't able to make informed choices about what they are eating. Secondly, to get the full range of vitamins and minerals that bread used to provide, we need to stick to stone-ground wholemeal flour, as the other 'wholemeal' flours have had many of their ingredients removed. What I like about this book (apart from the pages and pages of lovely recipes) is that the authors claims are backed up by scientific research. I am very weary of people who make claims without proof, but Andrew Whitley has really done his research.
The second book is a very new one that I am already loving, Sew It Up by Ruth Singer (this appears to be called The Sewing Bible in the US). This is full of tips on how to create really good finishes on your sewing projects, from zips to hems to buttonholes to pleats. I will find this very useful as I know the basics of sewing, but I lack the skills to finish off my garments so they look really professional (particularly zips, mine look terrible!). So far I have only read a few pages, and flicked through to see what it covers but I am impressed and am looking forward to using some of these techniques on new projects.

Both these books are avaliable from Fishpond