I was irritated. Actually, I was mad. I’d been on one of those health journeys people talk about trying to find my long lost energy and happiness and skinny self. I’d cut out most vegetables after realizing they were the reason my stomach was torn up all the time. I’d cut out sugar. I was living on mostly meat along with some fruit and some dairy - sometimes raw, sometimes not.
My daily piece of sourdough bread from the store was my one treat. I had read all about the benefits of sourdough and it seemed my stomach could handle it just fine. I was feeling better and had even slimmed down a smidge.
But then, I read it. I read how most of the sourdough you buy at the store isn’t actually sourdough. It’s just flavored to taste like it, so none of the benefits, but all of the chemicals. - the stuff I was trying to get away from. And the real stuff? Well, it was “spensive”, as Ricky Ricardo would say, and I wasn’t paying that kind of money for bread. I was working part time at a non profit, so the dough wasn’t exactly rolling in. Yup, I was mad. “Why does our food industry have to be such a scam?'' I thought. Why can’t they just keep things simple and leave well enough alone?
Making sourdough had been all the rage on social media, and I’d swore I wouldn’t be hopping on that train. No ma’am. It looked way too complicated for me with all the measuring and weighing and temperature taking and folding and kneading and knowing exactly how the dough should look and feel. It was like some kind of voodoo.
I didn’t want to give up bread completely, though. I started this stupid health journey to help with my stupid depression, and here I was about to be plunged back into it.
So I folded. Alright, I would learn how to make the stupid bread. I asked my dad, who had a book called the Bread Bible and had gone through his own bread baking phase, and my sister, a culinary graduate, about it. Needless to say, they only enforced my perception of how complicated this whole sourdough bread baking business was.
I was mad though, and when I’m mad, I don’t back down. The internet is a huge place, and I figured there had to be a simpler way, and I was right.
I found a simple sourdough sandwich bread. Now, I had to learn how to make my own starter because, you know, I wasn’t buying that either. It’s just flour and water, how hard can it be? Well, not that hard if you know what you’re doing, Kneedless to say, I did not.
I worked on that starter for several weeks. I later realized it had been ready in the first week so those extra 5 weeks or so I was feeding that thing like it was some kind of exotic pet? Yeah, I could have been making bread.
Anywho, it’s been a little over a year, and I’ve been bitten by the bread bug. While visiting my parents for a week, I had some time off work, which means I had time to think. Times like these usually result in crazy new ideas and ventures I want to try. This time I decided I wanted to perfect the craft and become an artisan bread baker and open an artisan bread bakery when I retire
Now I’m 7 bread books, a new book shelf (ya know, to hold the books), a cast iron dutch oven, a cast iron bread pan, another cast iron pan for rolls, an 11 lb scale, a dough scraper, a dough hook, and a thermometer deep with more on the wish list. Anyone want to send me some bannetons? I didn’t even know what those were until a week ago. (Look ma, I’m already well on my way.)
Anyways, it’s bake bread or bust around here. Guess I hopped on that trend train after all.