Oh, the baguette. What could be so hard? In baking there is a triple-salchow, the bread equivalent of jumping from toe tip to land on one foot, on skates, on ice, no falling. The baguette is that jump. I say this not to discourage you, but only in order to frame its making, to acknowledge that the baguette is at the center of our craft; it is our basic benchmark of skills in the artisan bread world. It is the elusive bird that lands on your palm one day and drops something on your head the next. . . . I have made thousands and thousands and still hope, every single time I touch them, that they might be better, more consistent, and more beautiful. And, knowing the challenge, living daily in the place where what I want to be and what I actually am leave room for improvement, I can offer encouragement: Judge your success by the faces of your eaters. Are they happily crunching and munching? Did they ignore your uneven shaping or imperfect crumb structure? Of course they did. So take that as an endorsement and give it another shot, and another, and another.

For the baguette, a slightly less sticky dough we call “French dough” was a good place to start. French dough (which I use for the Poolish Baguette) is an all-purpose recipe that can be used for a dozen unique products, from boules and baguettes to rolls, sandwich loaves, and even pizza or focaccia. It is a backbone, a daily catechism that forced me to practice the same three foundational shapes over and over: the boule, a round form meaning “ball” and the basis of the French word for baker and bakery (boulanger and boulangerie, respectively); the baguette, a stick shape from the word for “wand” or “baton,” with tapered ends; and the bâtard, an elliptical form, which is neither baguette nor boule, thus the name, meaning “bastard.” Learning these shapes is a fundamental skill; doing them well is a lifelong pursuit, like that of the artist forever sketching the perfect circle.