It all started on a beautiful sunny Saturday at the farmer’s market. The stands were overflowing with fresh produce and baked goods. It’s things like this that make you feel good, look at my community coming together to show their talents and the bounty of this great land, and look at me supporting local businesses. As I mentally patted myself on the back, I wandered over to the bread stand, fresh sourdough, what a delight, but $10? I’m supportive but common!
As I cradled the precious overpriced loaf in my tote bag, I was presented with a thought. Why can’t I make this myself? And down the rabbit hole she goes!
I think it’s important to take a quick pause here to explain that I am a dive in impulsive gal. Why take the time to research something when you could just start right away?
Anyway, night one, the starter. I am following the instructions to a t, let’s be honest, it says to mix water and flour, BUT I measured the ingredients with a scale and I used the suggested jars. Watch out Martha Stewart. That first night I was filled with excitement. That was easy, maybe this would become my thing? I would be known for making the best sourdough, maybe I should hop online and check how much a stall would be at the farmers market? I’d check tomorrow.
The next day, I read the rest of the instructions, it takes 7 days to make a sourdough starter. Each day, at the same time, you have to feed your starter. The starter is fed by discarding half of the goo in the jar and adding flour and water. You repeat this for the next 6 days. Suddenly I’m having to be home at a certain time every night to feed my starter, but great things, by which I’m obviously referring to my award-winning sourdough, require discipline and sacrifice. Something that was not detailed well in the instructions was the incredibly foul smell. Every night I opened the jars as if they were radioactive, I would discard half of the starter and toss that bag of garbage full or not. I didn’t quite understand how something I was going to eat smelled like something someone had already eaten, but hey science is weird right?
Finally, after 7 days of dedicated tending, my starter was ready. I marvelled at the jar, I did it! I typed into google, “my sourdough starter is ready, what now?”, finally the recipe, sourdough stardom, here I come! I pulled out all of the ingredients, and started measuring, the recipe called for the entire amount of starter! This couldn’t be right, I must of missed a step, but I was so close, I had to see this through. I kneaded, I proofed and 24 short hours later I had the loaf. She was a beauty, I laid it out on a wooden cutting board in front of a vase of flowers, I am a domestic goddess.
The recipe suggested that I wait 2 hours to cut into the loaf, the wait was grueling. It was finally time to cut and…… it was just ok. Decent taste, dense texture. As I sat there gnawing on my creation I thought, I spent over a week of my life on this. This loaf is worth $10 at least!
At the end of the day, I have chosen to break it off with sourdough. Turns out I wasn’t ready for the commitment. I was however ready for the lesson, thank you sourdough artisans, we appreciate you.
