What’s the recipe for success? Trick question. There is, of course, no one recipe but lots of recipes, nearly all of them involving varying degrees of hard work, passion and luck.
Sarah Owens, by any measure, is a success. She founded a popular bakery in New York City called BK17 and has written two cookbooks, one of which, “Sourdough: Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads, Sweets, Savories and More,” won a prestigious James Beard Award. This week she’s in Fairfield to deliver the keynote address at the annual Kneading Conference, a gathering of breadheads from Maine, New England and beyond.
So what path did Owens travel to earn such esteem? An unlikely one. She was a ceramics artist before becoming a cultivator of roses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, then started teaching herself how to bake. Now she’s in demand as a speaker and teacher across the country. The recipe for success in her case was straightforward: “a need to satisfy all those hungry bellies and inquisitive souls who just want to provide fresh food and healthy grains to their friends and family.”