Back To The Basics With Joanne Chang

Chef Joanne Chang got her start baking chocolate chip cookies for her Harvard mathematics study group. Following a brief foray into business consulting — where she was still baking on the side — Chang went to work for some of the best chefs in Boston and New York. Then, she opened Flour, one of Boston's most beloved bakery-cafes. Twelve years later, and many, many thousands of chocolate chip cookies later, there are four "Flour" bakeries.

Joanne Chang now has a new cookbook, called "Flour, Too".  In it, she shares some of the cafe's most loved recipes for vegan vanilla-mixed berry muffins, and roast lamb with tomato chutney sandwiches, to bittersweet chocolate-espresso terrines.

So, yes. Delicious. But what really caught our eye is a special section in the back of the book... that — without fanfare or flair — connects everything Chang has ever done... from the buche de noel to those chocolate chip cookies. It's a chapter on basics. The foundational techniques and recipes that great kitchens are built on. And Chef Joanne Chang joins us now to demystify some of them.

Joanne Chang, author of "Flour, Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Cafe's Most Loved Sweets and Savories"