My friend Debra Samuels is a food writer, cookbook author, world traveler, and a member of this cookbook club. I was thrilled when she told me that she planned to pick up a copy of our current club pick—Secrets of a Jewish Baker.

In fact, Deb helped me get a jump-start on the book when I visited her in Boston early last month. We started the sour rye starter and made bagels together. Bagels are great fun to make and surprisingly easy! Deb did have one advantage over me, I realized, as we wrapped the ropes of bagel dough around the palms of our hands: she has petite hands, matching her petite frame, compared to my large hands, matching my 5’10” height. It took extra work for this beginner to stretch and cajole the dough around the width of my  palm. (But then, maybe Deb is just a natural and I’m looking for excuses for my awkward first bagel steps.)

It hit me just then, as we were forming the dough around the palms of our hands. In the old days, all bagels would have been handmade, literally! And the size of the bagels at each shop would have been dependent on the size of the hands they were formed around. So, the bigger the hand . . .

Since our visit, Deb has jumped headlong into the book, creating sour ryes and pumpernickel breads from scratch, using the starter we started together, and much more. It’s great when a club member gets excited by one of the books we choose, and even better when they write about it. Here is a link to her blog, Cooking at Debra’s, where Deb gives an account of her bread baking adventures.