Local author, publisher, teacher, and clandestine restaurateur Andrew Barton is a busy guy, so when COVID lockdowns forced him into a relatively static homelife, he endeavored to earn himself yet another descriptive title: bread baker. After months of tinkering and note-taking, he emerged with The Long Loaf: Bread for All Days, recently published in a handsome volume by his own Two Plum Press. Andrew describes it as “a handbook for loose, intuitive, naturally leavened bread baking peppered with ponderings, ruminations, and romantic notions on the baking and consuming of bread as something one can and should do in our troubled world.” We’re enthusiastically in favor of romantic paens to the joys of eating, and The Long Loaf has earned a place on our shelf next to our most-used cookbooks.