handmade + homemade

baking zines are back

Two nights ago, I stayed up late making four ginger peach pies. Baking after the children’s bedtime has become a beloved practice: quiet, uninterrupted, kept company by the dog and a movie (understated romance, Richard Linklater’s catalog, films where almost nothing happens but the vibes are excellent, also Outlander). If you love baking, I think you’ll really hear me when I say baking a pie is just as much about the process as the result. The feeling of cold butter pats giving way and merging with flour and salt, the grateful moment when the fruit is finally all chopped, the warm scent of frozen ginger root grated over a giant bowl of juicy peaches, the zip of the rotary cutter through the smooth, flat sheet of dough making lattice strips. Day baking is for simple cakes, a batch of scones, cookies that come together in the bowl of the mixer, things that need a lot of stirring and mixing and enough ingredients that all the little helping hands get to add some. But I’ll keep the summer pie for myself and the evening, fan on low, wishing I had more screens in my windows, with Ethan Hawke.

I’m talking about baking today because I’m here to tell you my handmade baking zines are back. I tried to count the years since the fourth issue was published but to be honest it feels like there’s been a decade between 2018 and 2023 and I just can’t place them precisely in the timeline – folks, it’s been a while. During that whole while I never got asked anything about my work more often than if I was bringing them back in print or if there would be another one or whether I had any stashed away that I could let go of. I’m so pleased to let you all know I’m going to make another run alongside my collaborator Emily Halbardier, and I’ve got a fresh issue coming soon, too.

I started the first issue of the Sugar House zines, Spring + Summer, when I just had one son. I can’t remember that time very well out of the blue but when I read those recipes again, I’m right there, and when I make something like the Honey Lavender Cheesecake Pie every spring, I can feel every year as a mother of one echo through me. The second issue, Fall + Winter, with the Sweet Potato Pie I make for thanksgiving and the Chocolate Beet Cake, and the Applesauce Muffins still sits on the counter for most of autumn every year. By the time I wrote the third issue, called Home, River had joined us, a much-awaited baby with the brightest blue eyes and an even brighter spirit. That issue holds my most often made recipe ever, the Peanut Butter Granola, and the first Chocolate Chip Cookies (mine have cherries) I ever loved. As River grew, so did my relationship with my sourdough starter. I’d started it under the apple trees when he was a baby, and working with time and temperature and place to make naturally leavened breads and treats became a throughline in my days and weeks. In the fourth issue, Sourdough, I shared the sourdough staples I still go to years later, from pizza dough to tortillas to overnight Milk Drop Rolls to everyone’s favorite, the sourdough croissants. When you spend three days with a recipe each time you make it, you really get to know it. Croissants and I are very close.

The fifth issue will have both sourdough and non-sourdough recipes, and I’m calling it Home Again. Filled with recipes I’ve come to cherish and rotate through our monthly meals, seasonal menus, and community gatherings throughout the last few years of transition that have been characterized by a making of home, again. I can’t wait to share them with you.

Pre-orders for the new printing of the first four zines are now open. I know some of you have waited years to order a copy, so I’ll leave the pre-order open for about a week and if you want them, I’ll make sure you get them. While all that’s going on, I’ll be finishing up the new issue and sending it over to Emily to add her signature illustrations, design it to perfection, and print it on the risograph machine. When I’ve got all the pages back in my hands, I’ll add hand-letterpress-printed covers and finish each one by hand with naturally dyed cotton thread. Then they’re all yours.

I’ll be sure to keep you all posted about our timeline for getting the books to you, and if you’re excited about the fifth issue, I’ll be posting glimpses and sneak peeks of the recipes and design on Instagram and here in my letters as it all comes together.

Thank you all for baking with me over the years – I like it just as much as the smell of browned butter or the sound of cinnamon and sugar bubbling into caramel for my Red Ribbon Apple Pie (you’ll know just what I’m talking about soon!)

warmly,

Jessica