A baking Zen priest after [our] own heart!, The Oprah Magazine". This was the first cookbook I ever bought for myself back when it was first published. To this day, I consider "The Tassajara Bread Book" to have been a major influence not just on my cooking and baking, but on my attitude and philosophy about food in general. Thank you, Ed Brown, for this lasting gift. Mollie Katzen, author of "Moosewood Cookbook ". I feel a special fondness for this book, which helped launch me on my way to baking bread. Edward Brown's warmth shines through on every page, the recipes remain wonderfully unusual (I love the three-layer corn bread, which I've never seen elsewhere), and the overall experience is one of brilliant simplicity. Mark Bittman, author of "How to Cook Everything".

Edward Espe Brown began cooking and practicing Zen in 1965. He was the first head resident cook at
Tassajara Zen Mountain Center from 1967 to 1970. He later worked at the celebrated Greens Restaurant in
San Francisco, serving as busboy, waiter, floor manager, wine buyer, cashier, host, and manager. Ordained a
priest by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, he has taught meditation retreats and vegetarian cooking classes throughout
North America and Europe. He is the author of several cookbooks and the editor of Not Always So, a book of
lectures by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He is the subject of the critically acclaimed 2007 film How to Cook Your Life.