Sourdough Nonstarter

Look, I recognize that I’m over here in a bubble. No one in my bubble lets AI do my writing for me, and no one here likes how we have to disclaim that now. But this bubble always has mixed nuts in a jar, and stashes of chocolate, and two dogs, and it seems like it would be off grid, which it is, but only when the power goes out because wind blew over the electricity, and boy it could really use a haircut.

It’s me. I’m the bubble.

I regret to inform you that you are correct.

I held off making sourdough for a long time. Not even a global pandemic, during which EVERYONE baked bread, convinced me that I should make food that relies on hand bacteria. When I want bread, I can purchase a loaf for, like, six (or, increasingly, thirty-one) dollars. And then I eat it in my bubble, and I don’t need to acquire any loaf pans.

But then, this spring, even my bubble could not protect me from a well-intentioned gift of sourdough starter.

This little jar, I was assured, preceded Covid by decades. The hand bacteria in this puppy dates back to some French Foreign Legionnaire and had been smuggled out of one colony or another under fire, even if it was nineteenth-century fire and thus not terribly accurate. Men might have died for these gluten-munching hand bacteria. An active family lineage was sworn by blood to ensure its perseverance.

Somehow, I had presented myself as a worthy keeper of this offshoot jar.

I accepted the gift because saying no was rude. Not as rude as forcing a living entity on me, one that requires constant care and feeding and yet will outlive me and my chocolate stashes—but still rude.

The best news here is that they turn themselves into bread. The worst news here is that they need assistance.

A lot of assistance.

From me.

Yeah, sure, I have to buy the flour and acquire the bread pans and feed the little legionnaires and mix the ingredients and stretch the dough and temperature-control my home and set many different timers and wash my hands a whole lot more than they did back in Napoleonic days. But the real work is the cleanup. Sourdough dough sticks to everything.

I have resigned myself to permanent traces of hardened sourdough dough all over my bubble. I could clean it up with a little warm water, but all this bread-making effort wears me out. I need my overnight rest—just like the sourdough dough.

I’m enlisted, first thing, for hours of shaping dough, and creating a tense surface on the dough, and letting the dough rest again while I simmer in envy, unable to go back to sleep lest I miss the next timer for this needy, needy colony plopped on my countertops.

If there is one consolation, it is that many of the little flour fiends are about to perish at 450 degrees in a fiery cave. Their millions of voices cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

And if there is a second consolation, it is that I have butter and a fresh jar of jam. I will enjoy devouring that which I have been feeding all this time.

It’s not about the time saved—good lord, it’s not about the time saved. Nor is it about the money saved either, once you realize that bread pans are reusable.

No, it’s about these savory moments with the product of your own efforts. It’s about reaching back to a simpler time, when of course creative things were made by humans. It’s about buying yourself several more days not having to take your bubble out to the grocery store.

Not until the starter gets hungry.

And when it does, trust me—you feed it.

Getting new mishaps from me every week.

I’ve been writing these pieces since 2013 and even hoodwinked the Society of Professional Journalists into call it “a column.”

I’m glad to have you on board.

A version of this piece also appeared in the Abiquiú News and the Durango Telegraph.