IMG_2639

You hear it all over the internet, everyone is crazy for sour dough. The pandemic lockdown has brought a flurry of interest in cooking and baking. I guess it started because of shortages of staples in grocery stores. First toilet paper. Then bread. And then, surprisingly, yeast. Locked in their homes, Americans started to bake bread. And when the yeast ran out (which clearly happened before the flour disappeared), they reverted to old-fashioned, flavorful sour dough.

So did I. But with a twist.

You see, in my previous life I was a bread-baking maven, a yenta of yeast. I was so deeply into bread making, that I ground my own organic flour. By hand. You see, machine driven flour grinding heats the flour–not in a good way. I did this, every week, for twenty years. I would grind and blend flours–in the search for the perfect crust–the perfect crumb (the fleshy inner part of the bread), and to bring out the maximum flavor in various types of grain. My loaves were gorgeous–light whole-wheat sandwich breads, earthy, crusty french loaves with just the right heft and chewiness, hearty seeded loaves to go with soups or stews–or just some cheese and a good wine. I was a nut.

Then, in 2004, I learned I was a celiac. The very obsession that fed my soul had been killing my body. I had to go gluten-free. The end of bread.

For years, I just went without. I’d tried the commercial gluten-free breads. Leaden. Tasteless. Brick-like. In later years they came out with some better tasting varieties–lighter but not richer. And the ingredients. Oh my! I never saw so many additives and multi-syllabic ingredients. I’d buy a little, here and there. But if that was the best that bakeries specializing in gluten free bread could do, who was I to think I could do better?

Until the pandemic. For Mother’s Day, my niece gave my sister a gluten-free sour dough starter, a loaf of gluten-free bread, and a recipe. (She cannot do gluten, either.)  It was in the spirit of the current craze for sour dough. My sister was smitten and she sent me some starter–and a recipe. I was skeptical.

And yet…there’s something about homemade bread in the oven that brought back all those memories. It was worth a try.

And here it is, my first gluten-free loaf of sour dough bread. It rose beautifully. I think next time, a little more flour, maybe some sorghum. Maybe I’ll go out and find some teff. Even Rick likes it. There’s certainly room for improvement and experimentation. I might even pull out my old flour grinder. There’s lots to explore…maybe even to obsess over.