Sunday, April 5, 2020

Sour dough bread for the rest of us - or - Relax! It's gonna be OK.




Sour dough bread for the rest of us - or - Relax! It's gonna be OK.

Sour dough bread has always intimidated me.  The initial set-up, the feeding, the measuring, the timing, the commitment ... Maintaining a sour dough is like having a pet - and I'm not good with pets that don't remind me that they would like to be fed.  A sour dough was not likely to survive in my life.

But then, a few years ago, I set up a sour dough starter with the help of my adopted son. Truth be told, I did it primarily to entertain said son, but it has become a part of my life since then. In the beginning, for a few days - maybe even weeks, I obsessed over it, measured, fed, kept notes... but then, when I realized that this thing was doing just fine, I relaxed a bit.

Sour dough bread, it turns out, only sounds intimidating.  Once you get over the fear, it's really simple - and both the maintenance of the sour dough and the bread baking can be adjusted to work for the schedule of regular working folks.