Baking Bread

My Sourdough Journey

What a loaf!

Baking your own sourdough bread became trendy during the early months of the pandemic. It’s been three years since this pastime popped off, and in keeping with my own tradition of being perpetually late to every party, fad, and popular musical artist, I have just baked my first sourdough loaf.

I’ve always loved sourdough bread, but baking my own bread isn’t about cutting out additives or saving money — and it’s most certainly not more convenient. As Jerome Smail’s explains in the British Baker, making sourdough bread from scratch is a journey to explore your own authenticity, and to find both mental and spiritual well-being by accepting the stoic lessons offered by the rigorous baking process.

“Sourdough is basically an edible Tamagotchi.” ― Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well

After only two weeks of meticulously feeding a starter, cleaning four pounds of flour off my kitchen floor and counters, setting the leaven, autolysis, stretching and folding, shaping then resting, shaping then resting, shaping then resting, bragging to all my friends that I now make my own sourdough, and baking, I was able to produce this massive disappointment.

A good sourdough is only as dense as it’s baker.

— My Aunt, attempting — successfully— to make me feel worse after seeing this picture.

Even in failure, I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Trying new things will only lead to profound sadness and sticky fridge handles. It’s better just to do the same things over and over again until the Good Lord mercifully ends me.

Tune in next week, when I decide that my actual hobby is baking my own doorstops!

Enjoyed yourself? Then read this, Stupid:

Also enjoy this hilarious piece by Nathan Chen: