Sunday mornings were always special for our family. While some folks would dress in their Sunday best and make their way through busy streets to their place of worship, we would stay home for our own type of devotion. It would start the night before, with my Mother-in-Law mixing up a batter of sourdough pancakes to rise overnight. More than once we would finish the Saturday night movie (another ritual of sorts) and explain “Oh! The Sourdough needs to be made!”. She would hurry into the kitchen and grab the largest ceramic mixing bowl. Lovingly, she’d retrieve the sourdough starter and carefully remove some to mix with flour and milk. After covering the batter with a damp tea-towel and feeding the remaining starter she went on to prep herself for bed.
The Alchemy of Food
The next morning she would always beat us to the kitchen to finish the batter, warm some plates and gather toppings. By now the batter had transformed from a sticky mess into tangy-scented, bubbly batter of bliss. Pure alchemy. My husband Todd would spend the next 30 minutes cooking up a stack of pancakes while I set the table and fed the animals. No matter how busy we found ourselves, we repeated this family ritual every week. It was a time to pause, connect and bring a little joy, especially to Mom.
Often, Mom use this time to reminisce on family history. One of her favorite topics was the antics of her younger brothers. By the time the stories were done, you would wonder how they ever lived to adulthood. Often times the stories were repeats. But never-mind that, they were always entertaining. Even the dogs visibly enjoyed this time together.
Later, as Mom grew a bit more tired and things got busier we swapped out home-made sourdough pancakes with brunch at local organic restaurants. Seattle favorites like Agrodolce (now apparently closed as their website is gone) and Portage Bay Cafe offered most of the elements we had come to cherish on Sunday mornings. The ritual persisted until she fell ill and finally passed at 96 years old in 2019. I always missed those sourdough pancakes. And I will always miss that time with Mom.
In Search of Bread
After living in Texas a whole year, we’ve discovered a few surprises. 1) Garbage disposal is insanely expensive (I now understand why people burn trash in their yard!). 2)There are way more snakes + frogs + toads + lizards than I ever imagined. 3) No one makes decent bread in our small town. Absolutely no one.
So last week we decided it was time to add bread-making to our weekly schedule. Since living here I already picked up making our own yogurt, ice-cream, vanilla extract and sprouted nuts. When I have time I make quick-pickles and salsa too. All of which fits nicely into my cooking comfort zone.
But baking? And especially baking bread? I have pretty much zero experience. In fact, while I can whip up complex Indian inspired dishes with home-made paneer and hand ground spices without so much as a blink of the eye, baking is another story. I once spent a Saturday afternoon making batch after batch of failed chocolate chip cookies. Each batch turning out worse than the previous. All ending up in the trash. It was a disaster. And subsequent baking adventures frequently end in failure. The only recipe I’ve been able to master with some sort of consistency is banana bread. Occasionally I churn out a good german chocolate cake too – but it’s alway hit or miss on birthdays!
So now I’m going to be the master baker of home-made sourdough bread? What the hell am I thinking?!
Sourdough Revival
Step one was to come up with a starter. We had lost Mom’s old starter years ago. That’s what happens when life crumbles on you. But after observing the fact that our compost pile practically transforms into soil overnight, I was confident cultivating a starter would be the least of my problems. I was right. One day after mixing together some einkorn wheat and filtered water into a clean glass jar I had a bubbly sourdough culture. A few days of removing half and feeding and it looked positively raging! Hello sourdough!
After day 3 though, Todd asked what I was doing with the half of the starter I removed daily. Well, I’m composting it. Why? He looked at me, visibly exasperated, what a waste! I shot him back a sideways glance, why don’t we use today’s discard to make pancakes?! And so it began.
I prepped the sourdough batter on Saturday night. And on Sunday morning we had a bubbly, tangy batter that produced the most amazing sourdough pancakes. It had been years since we had real sourdough. To honor the occasion I made a simple blueberry compote, diced up some walnuts and brought out our very best maple syrup. The whole experience was amazing. Transformative even.
A Homage through Sourdough
One thing did surprise us though. Along with the found memories of delightful sourdough, was a flood of memories about Mom. We found ourselves making comments about how much she would have loved the meal. How much we enjoyed our old Sunday mornings. And how our own passed dog was probably with her right now, enjoying their own plate of pancakes. The strength of emotions was unexpected. Wave after wave, the thoughts passed through us as we took bite after bite of delectable blueberry-soaked pancake. Sigh.
As I pick up the new tradition of baking bread using sourdough I can’t help but think of it as a way to give homage. Homage to the past and to my family. Homage to health and independent living. Through these daily journeys we connect and find meaning. How better to offer devotion to my maker? How better to pay homage to one of the most amazing people I ever knew? Food connects all and connects time. It is because of this that I dedicate much of my life to cultivating nourishing traditions with food.