Bread editor
Petra Sloane
Petra Sloane learned to bake from her grandmother and never went to culinary school. She has run Open Burner's bread section since the magazine began.
Beats
Published in Open Burner
Pantry
What a Good Stock Jar Earns Its Keep By
Petra Sloane keeps two jars of homemade stock in her freezer at all times. She explains why, and what they have replaced.
Bread & Baking
The Bread You Bake for Someone Who Is Sick
Petra Sloane on the loaf she takes to a friend recovering from chemotherapy. Soft, plain, deliberately unimpressive, and warm in a tea towel.
Tools
The Microplane as an Honest Tool
Petra Sloane has zested ten years of lemons across the same coarse-grater. The teeth still bite.
Pantry
Dried Beans Actually Worth Cooking
Petra Sloane sorts through fourteen heirloom and commodity beans and reports back on which ones are worth the soak.
Preserving
A Year of Marmalade by Month
Petra Sloane keeps a marmalade ledger in a notebook on the shelf above her stove. Twelve batches, twelve months, twelve answers to the question of what to do with citrus.
Drinks
Tea as the Day's Structure: A Week with the Kettle
Petra Sloane does not drink coffee. She drinks tea, on a schedule that has not changed in fourteen years, and she has come to think of the kettle as the day's metronome.
Slow Cooking
A 24-Hour Beef Stock on the Back Burner
Petra Sloane started a pot of beef stock on a Friday afternoon in March and did not turn it off until late Saturday evening. The result was a quart of dark, gelatinous liquid she would parcel into ice-cube trays and use across the next two months.
Kitchen Notes
Cooking After Surgery
How a Glasgow baker rebuilt her kitchen life after a right-shoulder repair, one slow Tuesday at a time.
Preserving
Homemade Mustard, Three Ways
Petra Sloane has been grinding her own mustard since 2011. She keeps three jars going at once and never buys the commercial stuff.
Bread & Baking
The Weekly Sourdough Rhythm of One Home Baker
Petra Sloane has been baking the same loaf, more or less, every Friday since 2018. The starter is older than her youngest nephew.