I have never suffered from intimidation.
Sure, I worry about things. I wring my hands and stress and wake up at 3am because my brain will not shut up. But intimidation has rarely made its way into my psyche. I won’t say NEVER because I’m sure there have been times in my life I’ve been intimidated, but not to the extent that I remember it.
Until now.
Now I am wracked with it, cowering in fear and drenched in feelings of inadequacy and despair. It’s awful.
And I owe it all…to sourdough bread.
Listen, I've baked bread for years, I’m no stranger to gettin’ my dough on, but sourdough has always been my white whale. It's fussy. It has many many steps and stages. It’s unforgiving. I'm a Fleischmann's packet of dry yeast kind of girl. I'm comfortable with that. People like my bread, dang it.
But always in the back of my brain was a little voice that said, "Loser. You can't make sourdough. You’ll never be able to make sourdough. Also, your nose is big." So, as I cheered a new year at midnight on December 31st, I made a resolution to shut that stupid voice up.
"I will conquer sourdough,” I said out loud to my 3rd glass of Prosecco. It felt good. This was my year. Well, at least for sourdough; my nose is on its own.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Over the past three weeks, my free time has been consumed by sourdough. I've read countless books and watched a plethora of videos. I joined a sourdough subreddit. And because I joined a “sourdough for beginners” Facebook group, every other Facebook reel in my timeline contains something sourdough.
It’s all sourdough all the time.
I am a woman obsessed. I'm only at the starter stage but that starter has taken over my life. On the surface, it seems simple, right? Flour and water mixed together and left to get yeasty, but it’s not. It’s the opposite of simple. Measurements, flour blends, weighing things in GRAMS.
Dear Baby Jesus in a manger…I’m not that smart.
It is so all encompassing that at this point, I'm telling people I have three children: Drew, Madi and my newborn sourdough starter, Esther. I'm considering including her in this year's family portrait.
I check on Esther all the time. I'm constantly in the kitchen hovering over her, like a sourdough starter helicopter parent, marking her growth with a Sharpie on her Mason jar-feeling pride when she passes her line and worried when she doesn't. I get up at night to check on her. At NIGHT, people.
And the feedings..oh, the feedings. Measuring her "formula," making sure the water temperature is just right. Testing it on the inside of my wrist, coaxing her: "Give mama lots of bubbles like I see on the Facebook videos. Come on, you can do it. Mama needs some burps." Even when she starts smelling like a cross between stinky cheese and spit up, STILL I coddle her.
And as a mother of a newborn sourdough starter, I talk about her all the time. I didn't realize this until a couple days ago when I brought up the topic of Esther while getting ready for bed
“Wow," said the DH. "You haven't talked about her since dinner time. You went, like, four hours without bringing her up.
I keep Esther, in the oven. And I have a huge sign on the oven door reminding anyone and everyone not to turn on the oven. You know, 'cause Esther's in there. She loves it in the oven. She's thriving in there. But in the morning, she's a little cold. So, I've been turning on the oven for just a few minutes each day to give her a little warmth boost.
Feed her…turn on the oven...pour a cup of coffee...put in my creamer...put the creamer away...stir the coffee...rinse the spoon...and turn the oven off.
Yesterday, though, I turned on the oven...poured a cup of coffee...put in my creamer...put the creamer away...stirred the coffee...rinsed the spoon...and then I left the kitchen. Just walked right out of there while my little sourdough starter heated up to 350.
It wasn't until I smelled something strange that I realized what I had done.
That's right.
I KILLED ESTHER.
I murdered her without a thought while I drank my coffee.
When they make the True Crime documentary about me on Netflix, it will be called, “She Left the Oven On—the Sourdough Starter Murder.”
I hope Keith Morrison narrates it. He leans on things, very cool.
And this is why I will never do sourdough starter! I love your stories, they make me feel not so alone, LOL