I grew up in the 1980s. Clean plate club, Reagan era, depressed economy, kids running rampant, big wheels off the end of docks into a lake...those days. You don't waste food. You just don't.
Flash forward. I am a practicing buddhist in my 40s on spring break. Over the winter holiday break, I binge watched American Horror Story and was shocked by what it did to my mind: I was paranoid, thinking about sex and worried about violence. Given that I live in Oakland, this isn't abnormal. But, I thought maybe, just maybe I was feeding my consciousness a bit too much BS and need something more wholesome.
So I watched Michael Pollen's documentary on Netflix: https://michaelpollan.com/books/cooked/
I didn't know that most bread used to be fermented. I thought, really, sourdough was something only my relatives (gaelic and celtic sorts) did. I didn't know anything about why flour was "enriched" or what "processing" had done to our most basic ingredients.
So I started a starter. I did a lot of research first. I bought some books:
Sourdough by Sarah Owens, and pillaged my copy of the Joy of Cooking. I tried a few loaves and made a starter using a yeast packet, whatever crappy flour I had lying around and water from the tap.
I named it "the Beast" because over the next week it ate all of the flour because I refused to discard half of it every night. So I began to cook a lot of starter eaters and clip the recipes to pinterest.
I baked a few loaves once the starter was ready, realized immediately that my scoring technique sucks, and kept going. I also bought some whole wheat flour and unprocessed white bread flour.
After watching Patrick Ryan's Sourdough Master Class and deciding I'm going to stalk him and might give up my bachelorette lifestyle for him...I decided to try making a starter with wild yeast and wheat flour. I have named it "little monster".
So now I have 2 starters and they live in the fridge. No problem. Cue friends. Two friends wanted sourdough starter and asked for it, so I set some aside from them and for one reason or another, they didn't pick them up and they sat in my fridge for almost a week.
Last Thursday I check on my starters in the fridge. They smell like pears and nailpolish remover. Thanks to a new book that my mom got me The sourdough School by Vanessa Kimball, I figured out that this meant that my starters were all hungry...early.
So I fed all of them. ALL of them. I now have approximately 6 quarts of white sourdough starter and 3 quarts of whole wheat starter. As I write this, I have still thrown none of it away. I just finished baking a gorgeous white loaf of traditional sourdough and have it's twin in the oven now. I have two whole wheat loves proofing on the counter. I made english muffins yesterday and I'm making another batch today and since I'm having a dinner party tomorrow, I'll be making sourdough naan bread. This won't even make a dent.
So the moral of the story? If a friend asks you for starter, tell them to come over on your baking day and give them a spoonful. As for me? I'll be buried underneath a huge mountain of delicious bread things and continue to earn my title as "bread fairy" from friends and family until the goliath of starter is dealt with.
Flash forward. I am a practicing buddhist in my 40s on spring break. Over the winter holiday break, I binge watched American Horror Story and was shocked by what it did to my mind: I was paranoid, thinking about sex and worried about violence. Given that I live in Oakland, this isn't abnormal. But, I thought maybe, just maybe I was feeding my consciousness a bit too much BS and need something more wholesome.
So I watched Michael Pollen's documentary on Netflix: https://michaelpollan.com/books/cooked/
I didn't know that most bread used to be fermented. I thought, really, sourdough was something only my relatives (gaelic and celtic sorts) did. I didn't know anything about why flour was "enriched" or what "processing" had done to our most basic ingredients.
So I started a starter. I did a lot of research first. I bought some books:
Sourdough by Sarah Owens, and pillaged my copy of the Joy of Cooking. I tried a few loaves and made a starter using a yeast packet, whatever crappy flour I had lying around and water from the tap.
I named it "the Beast" because over the next week it ate all of the flour because I refused to discard half of it every night. So I began to cook a lot of starter eaters and clip the recipes to pinterest.
I baked a few loaves once the starter was ready, realized immediately that my scoring technique sucks, and kept going. I also bought some whole wheat flour and unprocessed white bread flour.
After watching Patrick Ryan's Sourdough Master Class and deciding I'm going to stalk him and might give up my bachelorette lifestyle for him...I decided to try making a starter with wild yeast and wheat flour. I have named it "little monster".
So now I have 2 starters and they live in the fridge. No problem. Cue friends. Two friends wanted sourdough starter and asked for it, so I set some aside from them and for one reason or another, they didn't pick them up and they sat in my fridge for almost a week.
Last Thursday I check on my starters in the fridge. They smell like pears and nailpolish remover. Thanks to a new book that my mom got me The sourdough School by Vanessa Kimball, I figured out that this meant that my starters were all hungry...early.
So I fed all of them. ALL of them. I now have approximately 6 quarts of white sourdough starter and 3 quarts of whole wheat starter. As I write this, I have still thrown none of it away. I just finished baking a gorgeous white loaf of traditional sourdough and have it's twin in the oven now. I have two whole wheat loves proofing on the counter. I made english muffins yesterday and I'm making another batch today and since I'm having a dinner party tomorrow, I'll be making sourdough naan bread. This won't even make a dent.
So the moral of the story? If a friend asks you for starter, tell them to come over on your baking day and give them a spoonful. As for me? I'll be buried underneath a huge mountain of delicious bread things and continue to earn my title as "bread fairy" from friends and family until the goliath of starter is dealt with.
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