Me: “I think I’m going to start making my own sourdough bread.”
My best friend: “Okay, but if you aren’t good at it right away, what will you do?”
Me: “Probably have a meltdown and stop trying.”
My best friend: “So maybe we should manage expectations then.”
Most of the people closest to me know that I do not like, in fact, I despise, the feeling of not being good at something. I can tolerate a learning curve, but it has to be short-lived. A blip in time on my way to greatness. And that trajectory had better be very distinctly upward in its slant.
I’m very quick to abandon something that isn’t getting any better. “It’s just not for me,” I bargain. Or “It’s not worth learning for me.” To say I don’t have a learner’s mindset isn’t true. I don’t have an “I’m comfortable struggling with this” mindset.
I knew that venturing into sourdough was going to make me have to confront this.
A couple of months ago, a sweet client brought me the most delicious loaf of sourdough. I brought it home like a golden treasure and showed Michael. “Smell it! Look at the beautiful crust…isn’t it magnificent?” It was beautiful, it tasted amazing, and I was hooked.
“That’s the best sourdough I’ve ever tasted!” I told her. She immediately offered to bring me another loaf. “Well, I was wondering if you might share your sourdough starter with me? I’d love to learn to do it on my own.” She agreed to not only gift some starter but to print her directions for an easy way to make sourdough (my ears perked up because that sounded a lot like a shortcut!) and one more loaf to get me by until I could produce my own.
Teach a man to fish, am I right??
I went home, directions in hand, starter acquired, and set to it.
I promptly produced a dense, stodgy, fairly inedible “loaf." I guess I could say disc. A flat disc of sourdough.
“Hahaha!!!” I casually laughed…of course, this first one was bad. “I’ll dial it in this next time,” I said to Michael, Lateka, my mother…anyone who would listen and let me convince them I was one more loaf away from greatness.
I leaned down to the loaf and whispered obsenities through clenched teeth. “Don’t embarrass me…” I felt my sanity slip just slightly through my fingers. But I set out to the second loaf. And the third. All using this shortcut method. And they were all. Awful.
“Okay, I’m giving myself until my seventh loaf. I’ll have it figured out by then.” I didn’t believe myself when I said it, either.
Then, I had a little chat with myself:
Why can’t I do this?
Because you’re not doing it to learn; you’re doing it to produce.
Why can’t I produce?
Because you’re doing it to produce, not to learn! You don’t understand the process.
Why don’t I understand the process? I’m reading the directions in detail.
Shortcuts only work if you know what you’re cutting and that it’s not essential.
You must earn the knowledge for shortcuts.
Then, I surrendered. I recalled purchasing this course from a friend. When I first acquired it, I watched it, and I thought, “That’s honestly too complicated and too time-consuming.” Which is why I was so attracted to the shortcut method.
(Also, how adorably arrogant that I thought I could “time hack” a centuries-old skill!)
I decided I would try once more, for my fourth loaf, but this time using this “slow dough” method. I would really take all the time in each process and see if I could understand why I was supposed to do each step instead of just blindly following directions, hoping to produce something edible.
And so I did. I let my starter get truly and fully ready before using her1. I measured everything out exactly. I took each step and let it take the time it took. I bulk fermented forever in my cold kitchen. I asked for clarification from Becca2 herself. I didn’t freak out when my dough was so so so sticky. I scored it deep enough so it could really expand. I waited the excruciatingly long hour to cut into the baked loaf.
And guess what? It was pretty damn close to perfect. I had given myself until the seventh loaf to perfect it- by basically strong arming (and cursing into loaves of bread) to get it right. But it turns out I was able to bake a delicious loaf much sooner by just slowing down and allowing myself to be a beginner at something. Truly a tortoise and the hare moment.
This process also required me to activate all of my senses. What did it smell like when the starter was ready? How shaggy was the first mix supposed to look? What was the rhythm of a jiggly bulk-proofed dough? And what tenderness and edge finding was required to not rip the surface tension of my shaped dough ball? And most specifically to me, how bravely did I need to slash into that dough ball I’d worked so long on, so that it could steam and expand in the oven and show me its tender gluten lace?3
I’ve made a handful of beautiful loaves since then and am exactly 3 compliments away from opening up my own bakery.4 And most importantly of all, I am gaining a deeper understanding of what’s actually happening when I engage with this “slow dough.”
I made a loaf just yesterday and asked Michael, “Are you so glad I’m making sourdough?” and he told me what he most loved was how confident and happy it made me to have figured it out. (I know he also loves having a slice of beautiful toast with butter and plenty of strawberry jam with his eggs in the morning.)
He then proceeded to stop what he was doing and to help me with a sourdough photo shoot so I could post a picture here. I said, “Try to make it look like how people hold their newborns. Or how men hold up the fish they caught.”
Here’s to a beginner’s mindset. Here’s to slow dough. Here’s to friends who remind you that it’s okay to try. And here’s to remembering that shortcuts don’t make for soul work.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time and forever. This is something I often thought of while navigating this sourdough project:
James Crews: Small Moments
The world is not made only of sorrow
and heartbreak. Something always
slips through the gaps of a given day—
dew, for instance, clinging to blades
of grass newly risen from the lingering
sleep of winter, those droplets soaking
your boots and the legs of your jeans
as you pass through, as proof that you
are here, and belong to this planet.
If that’s not enough, then I give you
buttered sourdough toast smeared
with as much strawberry jam as that
bread can hold, and the first bite
whose burst of summer returns you
to the body, where small moments
like these are stored, like nutrients
leaves pull from the sun as soon
as it breaks through storm clouds,
filling the cracks with gold.
I’ll see you here next week- may your life be filled with love and good bread.
I named my sourdough starter at Lateka’s suggestion so that I’d be more patient with the process. “Frida Kahldough” and I are doing great.
This is a blatant advertisement for this beginner sourdough course. You won’t regret getting it.
I fear there will be so many more sourdough metaphors on this Substack, but I will try to spread it out so that this doesn’t become a bread blog.
If you’d like to buy a loaf, they each cost $99 because it still takes me a long time and makes me nervous.
i smiled through this whole dang piece.
'it' is always about the process. 🧡
ps, my sourdough starter packet i bought for $14 is still sitting on my counter, taunting me to begin, and i truly am intimidated. your writing is oh-so-timely.
pps. your photo shoot is 👌🌟👌
A delightfully thought-provoking post. And I absolutely love the photo collage. 🥰