Gift Guide: A Last Minute Supermarket Suggestion

The gluten-free craze drives some people mad, but it has had one enormous benefit.  A stroll through any supermarket is proof that alternative flours now abound.  Buckwheat, rice, oat and teff are only the beginning.

Stuck for a gift for a passionate baker? Consider an alternative baking book along with a few nicely wrapped bags of alternative flour.

Suggestions?  The latest book from San Francisco's Tartine Bakery: Tartine No. 3: Modern, Ancient, Classic, Whole. 

The wonderful Better Baking Book by Genevive Ko. 

Or should you want a virtual bible, a hefty, authoritative guide to the properties of little-known flours, there’s no better book than Alice Medrich’s Flavor Flours. Throw in a few different varieties from the supermarket - or a place like Anson Mills - and you've got a very fine gift.