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This bounty of time—what a gift it is for us. Not for everyone, I know. I find myself affirming over and over my awareness of our privileged status through this pandemic: no children at home, a comfortable house, and the joys we are reaping from Dino's overstocked pantry and his collection of 16,000 films on DVD. We're in clover.
We are both enjoying freedom from our usual heavy schedules. Our laundry load has lightened. The absence of dinner parties means no tablecloths and napkins to wash and iron. No one comes to the house, so the towels in the guest bathroom are good for a whole week. I wear the same clothes every day, never having to devise some moderately dressy outfit to decorate the public self. We spend much less money: no public transit, no meals out.
On the other hand, I can't deny that such a quiet life leaves me with little to tell you. Is there news from the Rialto? None. News worth carrying from Ghent to Aix? None. News that's fit to print? Still none. I'm stranded high and dry, tide going out, previously submerged boulders now dominating the muddy flats.
Yet here comes a story. Yesterday evening I took the little bowl of sourdough from the fridge and fed it (half a cup each of flour and water). Within an hour it was bubbling and light. Before I went to bed I fed it again—this time one cup each of flour and water. Lest you think I'm careless with my sourdough (though I definitely am), I'll tell you that I had a plan. This morning I gave it one more light feeding (half a cup each) and when it bubbled I set aside a fat cup of it to go back into the refrigerator where it would subside into sleep mode.
The remainder of this yeasty batter (a little over two cups) I used for bread. To it I added a cup of water, then flour: the rest of my Red Fife (an Ontario heirloom wheat), some unbleached white, some millet meal, some "Scottish oats" (oats milled to a cross between oat flour and steel-cut oats). About a tablespoon of salt. A glug or two of olive oil. And then I kneaded it in the stand mixer until it was smooth, though still fairly moist. I knew I could always add more flour if I needed to.
The variations on the best way to make a sourdough loaf would fill a book. We even own a few such books. But I long ago discovered that for me, when it comes to sourdough, the simpler the better. The super-precise measurements that some recipes insist on are beyond me. It isn't that I can't do it but that I won't. I long ago decided that the only reason for such nitpicking was to create loaves that are consistent over various batches. In other words, if you are baking for customers and need to ensure that your loaves will be the same, batch after batch, then precision is all. I will never be doing that, however, so I am liberated. The instructions that work for me say to add equal amounts of flour and water to your starter, then let the starter stand until bubbly. That's it. (Some rules, however are not to be broken: don't ever put anything except flour and water into your starter!)
My favourite technique is the one I described earlier: gradually build up your entire starter with successive additions of flour and water (equal parts). Once you've built it up to about three cups, then leave it for several more hours or overnight. In the morning extract and refrigerate a cup of it to be your permanent starter friend and use the rest of it to make the day's bread.
Many sourdough instructions tell you to discard all but one cup of the starter when you remove it from the fridge. Discard it? Throw it away? Are they nuts? No, don't do that. You could, if you wanted, give the discard to a friend who needs some starter, but you'll run out of interested friends within a few weeks. Feed all the starter (see my technique above), then save out a cup for the next time and use the rest for bread.
If, when you use such a thrown-together technique, your bread doesn't meet your highest standards, then use it for croutons or crumbs. Or freeze it and feed it to the birds in winter. Never waste it.
After all, what better way to watch the expansion of time than to immerse yourself in the evolution of a sourdough loaf?
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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