JEFFREY HAMELMAN has been baking professionally for nearly thirty years. For half that time he owned a bakery in Vermont. He has served as a baking and pastry instructor at several culinary schools and has baked and taught in France, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Brazil, and Japan. In 1996, he was selected as Captain of Baking Team USA, the three-person team that represented the United States in Paris at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie—the World Cup of Baking. In 1998, he became the 76th Certified Master Baker in the United States. He is Director of the Bakery and Baking Education Center at the King Arthur Flour Company in Norwich, Vermont. In this capacity, he teaches professional baking classes one week each month and bakes for three weeks each month in King Arthur's production bakery.