Sourdough
So it turns out that having a baby can throw you off your blog game for a while. Like 4 years a while. Tonight I felt the urge to write. To write about sourdough. In the little corner of the internet where I hang out everybody is a sourdough baker. It’s easy to think that everyone in real life is too. In real life though, it’s not so much the case and I find two types of people, those who understand binary and those who don’t. Err… wait. That’s the punchline for a different audience! Sorry, I digress. Some folk are absolutely amazed by the fact that I make my own sourdough and start giving explanations for why they could never do that but more and more I have found people who want to learn and to try and increasingly more people who have given it a go themselves. I love talking to those people to share stories. Stories of sourdough success. Stories of sourdough less than success! It brings us closer. We can connect in a way beyond the superficial. If you’ve tried to make sourdough, you know what I mean because you’ve felt that connection. If sharing bread is one of the most intimate things we share then sharing bread stories is up there too. When we share bread, we share life.
Some things in life are worth taking time over. I like to say that the best things in life are worth taking time over. A day at the beach. A picnic in the woods. A celebratory meal with friends and family. A random Tuesday meal with friends and family. An evening with a significant other. They are all better with unhurried time. We live in an instant society. The art of waiting is being lost. There’s no getting around it. Sourdough takes time. It simply cannot be rushed. It slows us down by forcing us to wait for it. At every stage the anticipation crescendos, eagerly awaiting that first taste. Finding a rhythm to life, with sourdough as the metronome, gives us balance and a sense of peace. One of the fantastic things about sourdough is that there is always a way to fit it in around your life even if you don’t want to go to the extent of fitting your life around your sourdough! I find myself joyfully moving along the scale!
Water. Salt. Simplicity itself. Yet complex enough to be a life’s journey if you let it.
Flour.