Bring on the fall baking and making.
I have been working with sourdough started these past few months, and the jokes from 2020 about people struggling with their sourdough are all legit. It's hard.
Slone told me she gave up on her starter when she realized she had just created something else in her home that she was responsible to feed. It went right in the bin.
I could not resist the idea that I could throw together a lovely loaf of sourdough bread with stuff I keep around my house anyway.
However, it's a process that tries my patience. Once you blend the dough, you have to let it rest for hours. Then you pull and tug and shape, and then leave if for even more hours. You'd think I would love the low and slow process of it, but patience has never been my virtue.
Also, there are so many different approaches to sourdough. After several failed attempts, I landed on Alexandria Cooks "foolproof recipe".
I don't know if I will keep this up. In addition to keeping it fed and the long ferment times, it seems that I am the only person in my home who enjoys eating sourdough bread. Hubs is benign about it, "It's still bread, right?" he tells me when I asked him to try a nibble. But the kids all out refuse because they can't handle the tang.
Over dinner I announced I might be ditching the sourdough starter as I watched them commend the baking skills of Kroger as they dipped store-bought baguette into their chicken soup.
"Why would you ditch it?"
"Because I have thrown out two stale half loaves this week because I can't eat a whole loaf alone and y'all won't eat it."
The kids unapologetically repeated, "We don't like sourdough."
"Fine," I said. "But ..." and I kept talking, but suddenly Behr interrupts me.
He said, "You said we were being mean."
"No, I didn't."
Hubs, looking somewhat horrified. "You did. You said mean."
Confirmed, Behr leaned into the satisfying feeling of being right, "You did. You said we were being mean because we didn't like your sourdough bread."
"No. I said 'if it's only for me, then there is no point in keeping it up.'"
Everyone is giggling for catching mom in a mistake and Hubs said, "No. You said, 'It's just mean'"
In an attempt to recover, I said, "If it was a freudian slip, then it was a hilarious one. And I can stand by that."
Stay tuned. In support of my baking, Hubs is proposing I made some sourdough bread for my upcoming travels to Louisville for Thanksgiving. There is some talk about how I would get through TSA with a whole rustic loaf of homemade bread.
Read Books. Wear Boots.
XOXO,
B.