I Fucking Hate Sourdough

I Fucking Hate Sourdough

It has come to my attention that I actually fucking hate sourdough and I had to learn this the hard way. I do LIKE not LOVE when it’s warm and baked by someone else at a restaurant . But it was sure fun to write about it. I wrote this substack to the entire Audrey Hobert album . My friend called my music taste “boomer mom” and thats coming from someone who has “divorced dad” taste (listens to Dylan Hours on Sunday.) But he wasn’t wrong. But boomer or gen z this album is a storytelling delight. It makes me CRAVE to be ignored in high school and then become a pop star But that is something only a boomer can say when high school pain feels so far way its actually fun.

But instead I BAKE MY BREAD BITCH a millennial’s right of passage. We all heard Taylor Swift detail her sourdough hiatus hobby and one of the most interesting women in the world suddenly bored us all.

Recently, my best friend Nicole Richie (we are saying full names here) gifted me her starter with great intimacy and significance. She was two months into making bread and wanted to see if I was ready to join her on this journey. She actually reminded me that I was the one who suggested we start this process, but that is very me.

Once a surf instructor told me that he had never seen anyone be so not afraid to get in the water, but as soon as I had to stand up, I would freak out and want to stop. That metaphor will play into this, trust me. Stay with me or don’t, truly.

I am normally a challah bread maker and the rules there are a little fast and loose, and I made the assumption that this would be only slightly harder. Here is a great classic challah recipe from Rochie Pinson or kit to buy here from my friends at the Village Synagogue

So last week was one of the most stressful three days of my life, and I know I am blessed to say that, but it does not make it any less true.

Before we even started, I confessed to Nicole that I was already thinking of ways to skip steps. This has a backstory.

Once during a really stressful time running HelloGiggles, and by stressful I mean a full manic episode, I went to a psychologist looking for meds. During the intake paperwork they asked, do you fill out forms in order or do you skip around. And to this day that question still spooks me.

I had always filled out the forms by writing my name first, then skipping to email, then back up to last name, and thought that was just my little unique flair. And suddenly they were telling me it was a symptom. How truly exciting. Anyway, I got the meds and my skipping steps phase sort of leveled out over time. But this sourdough phase was really testing me.

Feeding my starter was fun. I loved seeing her come to life and had already been watching so many TikTok videos that I was more focused on what I could make with all the discard, which was a bad sign already. I was not excited for these loaves. I was trying to subconsciously discard them.

One tik Tok account called “The_sourdoughhoe” promised it wouldn’t be intimidating and calls her followers “hoelettes” and if I was a “hoelette yet?” . I don’t think I’m a hoelette, yet.

@the_sourdoughhoeIf you’re already a Hoelette… tell the newbies your FAVORITE recipe of mine. If you’re new here, hi bestie — welcome to the chaos. 🥖✨ Let’s see which recipe wins 👀👇 #sourdoughbread #freerecipes

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This sourdough world is truly insane, and also now Nicole and I admitted we fall asleep watching tik tok sourdough videos For what it’s worth “theSourdoughNERD” is very soothing.

@brynn_ann✨Easy Sourdough for Beginners✨ FOR THE DOUGH: - 500g of unbleached bread flour - 350g water (room temp.) - 100g active sourdough starter - 10g salt FOR THE DOUGH (if you don’t have a digital scale): - 4 cups of unbleached bread flour - 1½ cups water - ⅓ cup active sourdough starter - 1¾ teaspoons salt 📌STEP 1: MIX THE DOUGH In a large mixing bowl, combine your starter, water, flour and salt. Mix until a shaggy dough forms. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and let rest for 1 hour. 📌STEP 2: STRETCH & FOLDS You will do 4 sets of stretch & folds 30 minutes apart. Make sure to cover your dough in between each set of stretch & folds. 📌STEP 3: BULK FERMENTATION Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and let it rise at room temperature. Mine took 6 hours to bulk ferment. *Please refer to the bulk fermentation chart by the Sourdough Journey 📌STEP 4: SHAPE THE DOUGH After bulk fermentation, lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out. Gently shape it into a round or oval loaf. Transfer to a banneton or pasta colander (seam side up). Cover tightly. 📌STEP 5: COLD PROOF Put your dough in the refrigerator for 12-48 hours (I let mine cold proof for 24 hours but you can bake when you’re ready!). 📌STEP 6: PREHEAT THE OVEN & DUTCH OVEN Preheat your oven to 450°F with your empty Dutch oven inside for about 45 minutes. 📌STEP 7: SCORE & BAKE Remove your dough from the refrigerator and place on parchment paper. Score your dough. Remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven, place your dough inside and put your lid on. 📌STEP 8: BAKE Bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes with your lid on. Then, remove the lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. 📌STEP 9: COOL Once baked, immediately remove the bread from your Dutch oven and place it somewhere to cool. Let it cool completely before slicing (at least 1 hour but if you can wait 2 hours - that’s best!). If you have any questions, please let me know - I’m more than happy to help! #sourdough #sourdoughbread #sourdoughstarter #sourdoughtok #sourdoughforbeginners #sourdoughbaking #sourdoughrecipe #homebaking

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Nicole, being my most intentional friend and my own tik tok teacher, made sure to clear her day for me while we made the recipe on FaceTime and proceeded to check in every thirty minutes for six hours, three of them to do the pulls. Nicole warned me about clearing my schedule, but how hard could this be, I thought. I LITERALLY THOUGHT SO WRONG. My thoughts were literally the wrong thoughts here.

A friend of mine was visiting me that day too and I could barely focus on what she was saying because I kept having to plan these pulls. A pull is just… well I do not even know how to describe it, but the accounts linked above will. It helped that when we would FaceTime Nicole, who has self-proclaimed Virgo energy which I now know to mean she just pays attention to things, she would shout “SLAP THAT bitch” and we would giggle. See, this was what I was here for, the giggles.

But again I planned my day poorly, and every pull felt like it was pulling me away from my regular life a normal life where you aren’t at the mercy of your own doing. I read the directions wrong and thought I could take a midday hike, which really shocked Nicole. She meant what she said when she said clear your day.

During one of my thirty-minute breaks we walked over to coffee and I caught myself saying “I have to go tend to my sourdough,” to which my friend replied, what a lifestyle flex that is. And she is right. To make sourdough is a privilege. It is a privilege of time and resources. You need so much time and so so many tools. So many rules too. There are just so many ways it can go wrong that have you almost obsessing over each detail, something that I do not do often. I am more a c’est la vie kind of gal.

So by the third day I was ready to bake and I did have fantastic results for my first time. The pleasure was just not there.

Not even in the bragging, I was too mad about the lost time. And if you make sourdough and you don’t brag about it did it even happen? And also I’m not gluten free, so what the hell do I care about how the bread is fermented. I repeat, this took three days.. Would I have preferred going to my local bakery and buying a twelve-dollar loaf over losing three days. The answer is absolutely yes. I have so much respect for our local bakeries. That would be my subway take “BUY YOUR SOURDOUGH NO ONE NEEDS YOU TO BAKE IT.” Also, flavors are disgusting! Grow up!

And what the hell am I going to do with all this bread. I live alone and from my last post clearly have a semi raging eating disorder. I was too scared to break it to Nicole, who had all these suggestions for me about how I could gift the bread and order these cute gifting bags on Amazon. More things to order. Literally, no thanks. This was stressing me out

.

But I woke up Sunday on my way to the farmers market, where a beautiful loaf made not by me was waiting for me, and I decided to be honest with my best friend. I left her a two-minute-plus voice note on how I actually hated sourdough and how stressful it felt and how the best part was connecting with her, but surely we have other things to connect on, and I just really let it rip on my feelings.

Her response was perfect. She cackled and said in the sourdough community they like to say “you control your starter and do not let your starter control you.” And that is exactly what I had done. I had been at the whim of this starter without asking myself if I even wanted to be there.

Nicole has taught me being brutally honest is the best path to humor, especially when you have built in trust. And so we cackled about how I suggested this process, freaked out and then decided I hate it. She rightfully said “Dare I say you have commitment issues.” But that’s for another essay. For now I will try making baguettes next week because I am a glutton for punishment and honestly how cool is it to say I made a baguette. I guess I just am not a Sourdough hoe (lette.)

Here are other things Nicole has taught me

• You cannot flake on people’s birthdays because it matters to them. This one was hard for me. I tend to flake. It is an LA thing. I am currently in recovery for flaking but I used to do it bad. I would genuinely think I do not mind people flaking on me so let me just not show up to a birthday party. Nicole had to pull me aside and do the hard work, the kind of work people were probably doing behind my back with less kindness, and say when someone invites you somewhere they want you there. It matters. Who knew.

• Also when you hang up the phone you do not rush off. You have to actually hear the other person say goodbye too.

• She taught me to read a book slowly. I can devour a book in one sitting and she asked me to go slow with James by Percy. I read it over a week and it remains one of my favorite books, but I have not read that slowly since.

• She has also taught me that sometimes chatting on the phone about truly nothing, like whether we like lions or bears more, is as fun as gossip. Maybe more fun.

  Anyway, after last weeks maybe overshare about my GLP 1 spiral I received so many kind comments that it made me realize we all have a complicated relationship with food and I wanted to take a break from thinking about food to I guess make food? So, if you do like sourdough the Tartine recipe really was super easy..
  
  There are so many things to buy but maybe just get this!

DIY SOURDOUGH KIT