Stephanie! The timing of this topic is fortuitous, possibly even eerie. I too was a laconic dried-yeast no-knead baker during the pandemic and ventured forth into making my first sourdough starter and bread only last week! I was mostly preoccupied with the preheating of a cast iron casserole dish + lid in the oven at 250 C and not sustaining 3rd degree burns, which my meticulous cookbook insisted was essential to achieve anything even vaguely acceptable as sourdough. The loaves turned out not bad for a beginner but my blood pressure was not okay.
However, my most witchy colleague at work (witchy because she lives in the country, varnishes her own floorboards and claims knew she was going to marry her husband the second she saw him walk past her in his plumber’s stubbie shorts) put me onto an incredibly reasonable sourdough-for-beginners resource with minimal faff or burns risk (baking in cold oven! It works and she has the majestic loaves to prove it). Unsurprisingly, the resource is developed by a woman. She seems to have evaluated the spectrum of artisan sourdough guidance out there, assessed most of it as nonsense or wank, and developed her own disarmingly straightforward method for making great bread and remaining unscathed in the process. I’m trying it out this weekend; I share her page with you below in an effort to pass on the joy and feminine reasonableness into your also-burgeoning sourdough practice.
I loved reading Fake so much after a particularly seismic breakup I experienced years ago, it put a bit of me back to together (with the passage of time I can’t quite recall which bit it was specifically, but I remember the feeling of closing the book and feeling inherently better than before I opened it). I’ve done it repeatedly since (read the book I mean, not terrible breakups) and am even planning to get my in-laws to read it for upcoming family book club. So, I feel offering this resource is the least I can do in return. Please enjoy! Bread is eternal. https://foodbodsourdough.com/the-process/
oh that's funny Bridget!! thanks for the link. I made my second loaf yesterday and it was so much better than the first. I continue to waddle around feeling as though I have bricks in my stomach! So much bread and butter! And I'm glad 'Fake' was helpful to you. Lordy, the idea of it being discussed at a family book club... how strange!! To be a fly on the wall!
Enjoyed reading this, thank you! In South Africa we may (still) have a lot of wilderness, but we also have a LOT of pesky golf courses and many more (414 too many) than our seriously, crisis-level diminishing water resources should allow. Over here, I feel rather alone in hating all these chemically- induced upper-middle class show-off grounds. Gosh a golf estate is the place to live, the best address... ahem, no - you are actually killing yourself and your privileged children by exposure to horrific chemicals daily (very little adherence to banned substances over here) and killing the planet, but yay, great address! And none of my business associates understand the evill look in my eye when they invite me to participate in a golf day. Well done to all involved on getting a 9 hole back from the idiots...Earth 1; Idiots 34'000...a luta continua.
haha Leonie! How wonderful to hear from you! Glad I'm not alone in my naughty glee at golfers' unhappiness. But not sure that so many chemicals would have been thrown around here ... we're quite conscious of that.S
Stephanie! The timing of this topic is fortuitous, possibly even eerie. I too was a laconic dried-yeast no-knead baker during the pandemic and ventured forth into making my first sourdough starter and bread only last week! I was mostly preoccupied with the preheating of a cast iron casserole dish + lid in the oven at 250 C and not sustaining 3rd degree burns, which my meticulous cookbook insisted was essential to achieve anything even vaguely acceptable as sourdough. The loaves turned out not bad for a beginner but my blood pressure was not okay.
However, my most witchy colleague at work (witchy because she lives in the country, varnishes her own floorboards and claims knew she was going to marry her husband the second she saw him walk past her in his plumber’s stubbie shorts) put me onto an incredibly reasonable sourdough-for-beginners resource with minimal faff or burns risk (baking in cold oven! It works and she has the majestic loaves to prove it). Unsurprisingly, the resource is developed by a woman. She seems to have evaluated the spectrum of artisan sourdough guidance out there, assessed most of it as nonsense or wank, and developed her own disarmingly straightforward method for making great bread and remaining unscathed in the process. I’m trying it out this weekend; I share her page with you below in an effort to pass on the joy and feminine reasonableness into your also-burgeoning sourdough practice.
I loved reading Fake so much after a particularly seismic breakup I experienced years ago, it put a bit of me back to together (with the passage of time I can’t quite recall which bit it was specifically, but I remember the feeling of closing the book and feeling inherently better than before I opened it). I’ve done it repeatedly since (read the book I mean, not terrible breakups) and am even planning to get my in-laws to read it for upcoming family book club. So, I feel offering this resource is the least I can do in return. Please enjoy! Bread is eternal. https://foodbodsourdough.com/the-process/
oh that's funny Bridget!! thanks for the link. I made my second loaf yesterday and it was so much better than the first. I continue to waddle around feeling as though I have bricks in my stomach! So much bread and butter! And I'm glad 'Fake' was helpful to you. Lordy, the idea of it being discussed at a family book club... how strange!! To be a fly on the wall!
Enjoyed reading this, thank you! In South Africa we may (still) have a lot of wilderness, but we also have a LOT of pesky golf courses and many more (414 too many) than our seriously, crisis-level diminishing water resources should allow. Over here, I feel rather alone in hating all these chemically- induced upper-middle class show-off grounds. Gosh a golf estate is the place to live, the best address... ahem, no - you are actually killing yourself and your privileged children by exposure to horrific chemicals daily (very little adherence to banned substances over here) and killing the planet, but yay, great address! And none of my business associates understand the evill look in my eye when they invite me to participate in a golf day. Well done to all involved on getting a 9 hole back from the idiots...Earth 1; Idiots 34'000...a luta continua.
haha Leonie! How wonderful to hear from you! Glad I'm not alone in my naughty glee at golfers' unhappiness. But not sure that so many chemicals would have been thrown around here ... we're quite conscious of that.S