My Dirty Little Bread Secret

I’m quietly baking bread over here. Sourdough, of course.

I am quite proud that I only posted one picture of it that expired after 24 hours, leaving no trace. I only took the photo to draw attention to my problem: how can I make it more sour? My cousin in Seattle and college roommate in Los Angeles and the head of my rival house at Hogwarts obliged. Now my bread is more sour.

But why am I, a person who shares extensively without reservation, hiding my new hobby?

I am prone to dietary trends, easily convinced of the best new thing and I don’t like to admit it. I blend MCT oil into my morning coffee and I’m not entirely sure why. I sprinkle nutritional yeast into everything from popcorn to stew without really knowing what vitamin B does for me. Back in the day I ate oat bran muffins for my heart and non-fat yogurt for my waist and drank gallons of Dr. Pepper because it was fat-free and the sugar and prune juice was so much better than aspartame, which was in my gelatinous yogurt. Most recently, I brewed my own kombucha (and may start again) and I used to make very creamy almond milk.

I would rather you didn’t know all of this.

I prefer the narrative that I am an independently-minded individual, a stalwart eater, a cook who mainly eats like my foremothers, a knower-of-what-is-good instead of a trier-of-what-is-marketed-to-me.

But, I am loving making bread. For a while I wasn’t sure what it was all about, but I am learning something. Bread making is about developing a little habit, a practice. It isn’t the big investment and then the splash of a birthday cake that never gets eaten all the way. It isn’t the family performance of spending a harried day, moments before Christmas, making lefsa with a special ricer and a special rolling pin to be cooked on a special grill.

It isn’t like dirty floors or my book or the laundry. These three beg for my attention and yet can be ignored for weeks. They tolerate my neglect and need me to give a whole afternoon to them.

Sourdough requires me to circle back often and yet it is easily satisfied. It’s a little glass dish festering on my counter. It is witchcraft: one day I added 2 parts flour and 1 part water and a day later I let go of half of it and added some more of the stuff I put in before. I kept doing this simple thing over and over until it was no longer a bland mush, but a tangy thing that expands to twice its size overnight. Three minutes a day make this magic.

Many things I do require coordination: Ramona, are you done with the dryer? Can you take your clothes upstairs then? Who’s sweatshirt is this? Are all of your dirty underwear in the hamper? You do have clean pants, you just haven’t put them away. The laundry is a streamlined process compared to the orchestration that is teaching.

The sourdough is all mine. No one else is involved, yet it requires the wisdom of ancestors. It rises in the bowl my Grandma Marie used to rise her dough. I pour over online instructions, looking for answers: what to do with the discard? Do I really need to invest in a spray bottle? Which rye flour should I try? But like most good things in life, the instructions are never enough--each recipe is the same but different. Figuring bread out requires a degree of wisdom and experience, a do-able amount of each. The wisdom of other good things--friendship, family, and writing a memoir--take so much longer. Sourdough isn’t instant gratification, but it doesn’t require the commitment of a marriage. You can’t rush it, but it isn’t needy.

Maybe most importantly, this thing on my counter gives back. It satisfies even when it is too dense or bland. Bread fresh out of the oven is always warm and crusty and butter fixes its every fault.

I want to do things more like I am doing sourdough. My cooking has been leaning this direction for years--I make and eat simple things that don’t wear me out. I want to live this way. Instead of burning hot and then out, I want to do little things that build up to something that satisfies, something that gets better as I draw on the collective wisdom of the world. Something that requires me to read and ask and listen and to do something, a little something each day.