The Braided Prescription
by Beth Ricanati, MDSetting: Ohio
Genres: Cooking / Essays & Narratives
Published on September 1, 2026
Pages: 256
Format: eARC Source: Netgalley
What if an ancient ritual could transform the way you live today?
In her beloved first book, Braided, Dr. Beth Ricanati shared how making sacred bread, challah, every Friday for over a decade transformed her life. Now, in The Braided Prescription, she shares insights from her subsequent challah workshops with groups all over America and even abroad, distilling what she’s learned into seven attainable and powerful practices for managing stress in our daily lives.
Blending personal stories, scientific research, and timeless wisdom, Ricanati demonstrates how these seven practices can restore presence in a distracted world, strengthen bonds with family and community, and teach resilience through imperfection. With warmth and wisdom, she shows how the weekly ritual of making challah bread can help us mend what feels frayed, anchor what feels uncertain, and create space for what truly matters.
For readers from every walk of life—including those who have never made dough or even seen yeast—The Braided Prescription is a powerful reminder that small acts, repeated with care, can lead to profound transformation.
I had picked up this book from Netgalley because I liked the idea of breadmaking as a spiritual ritual but I didn’t start reading it until the day that a neighbor brought me a loaf of bread that his mom had made.
I don’t think that I’ve ever had challah. I don’t have any connection to the practice of making it weekly for Sabbat. But my mom makes breads to give away for Christmas.
This is a followup to the author’s first book about how she got into making challah for stress relief. It was the combination of slowing down to make the bread and the gifting of the finishing product that helped her. Since then she’s been teaching workshops on making challah as a ritual to people of all or no faiths.
As I’m writing this review I have my first challah dough rising. I wasn’t able to use the dough recipe that is in the book. It has eggs in it. But I knew that I had a vegan challah recipe in a bread book I had. The author did mention that there was a challah making community on Instagram that was doing some really artistic work. I looked at that – and they are amazing. I also found a recipe for vegan challah there from @kerenruben that I’m trying.
The ritual part of the bread making involves having an intention. It could making the dough in honor or in memory of someone. You center yourself and breathe before starting to knead.
By making challah together, with intention, and sharing it with others, we become acutely aware how much we all need to slow down and nurture ourselves, our families, and our communities.
I did it a little differently as a nonreligious person. I grounded myself with my hands over the bowl as the yeast was starting to bubble. I closed my eyes and could smell the yeast as I grounded. Then before I started to knead, I spoke my intention out loud. I said that I wanted to learn and to be part of a community of women dating back millennia who used bread making to nourish their chosen families. I figured that was good for a first time to see if this recipe was going to work. I’ll be taking some of this bread to work tomorrow. Even if it is awful, they will eat it.
I’d like to make a habit of bread making. At first I thought it would be different breads because I didn’t have a connection to challah but fancy Instagram challah art is pretty inspirational. There are all kinds of designs I want to try. I like making bread but as a person on a weight loss journey I don’t want to have to eat it all. I guess I’m going to be finding people to give it away to.
There are some political statements in the book that are a bit touchy. The author is Jewish. One of the times that she cites as a particularly stressful moment is the October 7 terror attacks in Israel. That’s understandable. But, there are comments later on about her friend being upset about the things going on on college campuses after that. If you don’t know what that means that may just slide by unnoticed. It is a comment about the protests against Israeli attacks on Gaza. It seems a little tone deaf in a book about building community through food to be upset about protests about the treatment of civilians that include blocking food distribution. I’m reading an ARC I’d like to think that they’d see that this is a bad take and remove this before publication but I’m not hopeful.
This recipe was delicious! I’ve already thought of who I should take some to next.
