, our instructor for this workshop, is a baker and the bakery operations manager atin Norwich, VT. According to his, in previous lives, he was a professional opera singer and worked in investment banking. I never met him in these past avatars. I only know him as an accomplished baker (the flavor and crunchiness of the straight dough baguettes he handmixed for us the following day while our other dough was fermenting put to rest once and for all any preconceived idea I might have had on baking without a pre-ferment). Martin is also an excellent instructor. A firm believer in the Socratic method, he favors collaboration and the meeting of minds over didactic teaching and magisterial pronouncements, yet he keeps a firm hand on the discussion and never lets it go out of focus. It surely works for me!