Gesine Bullock-Prado’s writing debut Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman’s Sweet Journey From Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker (Crown Publishing Group, 2009) is a sugar-woven tale of the ups and downs of the bakery business and the bittersweet memories that come along with each and every homemade delight.
Bullock-Prado leads the reader on her exodus from the Hollywood Hills to the countryside of Vermont. As she battles her urges to escape Hollywood and the shadow of her famous sister, Sandra Bullock, she finds her bliss in baking and Vermont.
“No road rage, no cell phones, no fake tits or tans, no prestige handbangs, no billboards, no stop lights, no breaking, no traffic, no nothing. Welcome to Vermont. Just heaven,” Bullock-Prado boasts.
Bullock-Prado is not shy in offering up sound advice to her readers about the unrelenting task of becoming a baker and owning a business. But Bullock-Prado never ends a chapter on a sour note.
After she outlines her years and summers in Germany with her opera-singing mother and grandmother and her decision to move from West to East, Bullock-Prado offers up a recipe for one of her masterful delicacies with writing constructed in a fashion much like the steps in baking.
She pre-heats her audience with minute descriptions of almond croissants and Parisian macaroons and then progresses to the chemistry. She starts with wet, juicy and sugary details about her morning routines or summers in Germany. She then sifts together the dry and binding details, then slowly mixing the wet with the dry to harmonize the abstract with reality. A tedious, yet needed process in order to achieve the precise taste desired.
Bullock-Prado uses the pages of her book as a memoir of her past and a reliving of her mother who passed months before she opened the doors to her bakery in Montpellier, Vermont.
Her words are sweet and sincere, but ultimately leave the reader wondering whether or not she’s truly happy. Then, at the very end she utters into her audiences’ ears that the glory of the baking world is in the process of production and the simple smile on a satisfied customer’s face after they’ve devoured a warm cherry tart.
Confections of a Closet Master Baker is a pleasant reminder of the magic that accompanies a homemade sweet.
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