Sunday, February 10, 2008

casualty. it's so, i dunno, "casual"

rest in peace, sourdough starter. i don't know what happened to you. i thought things were going so well. and then you were dead. there is much i have yet to learn about microorganisms.

in conclusion, mixing equal parts flour and water, leaving it in a glass jar with a permeable covering, and stirring it every morning with a wooden spoon for three days does not necessarily result in sourdough starter. sometimes it results in moldy wheat paste. just like the rest of life.

but djimmy gave me a camera. thanks, pal. soon, there will be pictures again.

not relevant:

1) new comic book called "five second rule," send me your address and $2 or a trade, i will send you or hand you a copy.

2) the co-op once more has good produce. including delicious kumquats, some of which i ate while working there. (you gotta love a store where you can pick up produce, weigh it, and ring yourself up on a cash register and them immediately eat it. also .... you can just take things that are expired, record them as waste, and eat them, rather than throwing them out and hiding them from hungry people who will then have to go looking through trash bins to get them.)

here. food. take.

i'm not making sense.
i asked a few friends to add their cooking stories here. i think they will, maybe.

here. take.

5 comments:

JohnP said...

Peter Reinhart suggest using pineapple juice instead of water for the first few days - the acid in apparently just right for the organisms you want, and just wrong for those you don't. I have done this and it worked well for me.

See more here:
http://peterreinhart.typepad.com/peter_reinhart/2006/07/sourdough_start.html

chris said...

apologies for my having been delinquent in accepting your invitation! i'm all for contributing, but will likely take some time to get my thoughts organized.

carmichael said...

john-
perhaps i'll try that. it seems counter to my unspoken purpose of pretending to do things the way my great grandparents would have done them (i was thinking with grapes maybe), but sourdough made with pineapple juice is still going to be better than non-sourdough bread. thank you.

bee-
do you need some google alerts on butt hash to remind you? take your time. like the zooglea takes its time.

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

I heard it's good to toss out 1/2 cup of the starter each morning and replace it with a 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water (stir stir stir). It feels weird to throw out perfectly good flour goo, but it's only for the first few days and you can use the goo as a litmus test if you make pancakes with it.

weirdly, despite only discovering this information yesterday, I found your blog through the Okra video and not some sourdough google search. spooooooooooky. (excellent vid + blog btw)

JohnP said...

Carmichael,
You only have to use the pineapple juice for the first couple of days, until the good microorganisms have really established themselves. I think any acidic juice would work - not sure if grape juice would have enough acid, though.