(A short story by Irene B.)
“T-minus three hours!”
Popped up Denise’s text, breaking my once chill morning of scrolling. That was how much time I had before I was supposed to bake my very first loaf of sourdough bread. This is what I get for trying to support a friend… a mate. This is what I get for greedily eating every piece and version of the delicious offering my mate, Krissy, makes. Now here’s me, enrolled in a five-plus-hour class. I blame my stomach.
Then Denise adds, all casual and shit.
“Who’s excited to make bread?”
Immediately my stomach dropped, and a loud “fuck” slipped past my lips, but I hearted her comment.
Nikki: “Wait, so we’re starting now?”
What part of T-minus three hours is now? But more to the point, there’s questions already. Less than 20 hours ago we had a stellar demo to prep us for the following day and now look at us. Five educated women in shambles, terrified to make bread.
Hell, I’m not Martha Stewart!
The encouragement and sheer faith Krissy had in all of us seemed to have vaporized.
We were all doomed.
Denise: Added a laughing emoji to Nikki’s comment.
The evening before, Krissy (Host/Teacher/Witchery-Bread-Making-Wizard) had gathered the five of us: Denise, Nikki, Gina, Angie, and me, around her baker’s island to test out her new sourdough bread-making class. Mia was supposed to be the sixth, but she had to host her kids’ sports party event thing, a last-minute switch-up. Upon seeing the island layout of flour, umpteen unknown utensils, and some white wobbly thing in a jar, I was about ready to flee the scene and help Mia wrangle a bunch of teens instead. Seemed far less daunting. Plus, I knew the bottle of Disarrono she kept for me was probably still at the level I’d left it and was probably calling my name. Sigh.
But no.
I… we… were here to learn and support our girl, and hell, at the end of it there’d be food.
I hoped there’d be food.
I hoped there’d be food I could eat and not die from something I’d made with my own hands.
Cooking I can do.
But baking?
I leave that to the professionals, aka my girls.
All those precise measurements and shit?
Nah.
I’ll just call the bakery, thank you.
Denise had made other bread types before, whatever those were, so naturally the rest of us quietly promoted her to the Head of Sourdough Support group.
Now Krissy is one of those people who runs towards a craft, and the more of a challenge it is, she’s damn near sprinting. Then again, when you can teach humans from kindergarten to college, where’s the fear?
What fear?
As Krissy began her explanation of starter (the white wobbly thing in the jar), bread flour, lames, bannetons, doo-blee-doo’s, and whatsamagiggies, we all looked at each other dumbfounded, only to then be hit with middle school mathematics: ratios.
Insert the GIF of Viola Davis grabbing her bag, disgusted, and leaving.
That was me realizing this ain’t for me, and clearly I’d made a grave, huge mistake.
Sensing the fear in our eyes, Krissy calmed the room and began going over everything with the care of a favorite teacher, but the favorite kind that you still don’t play with.
Then Angie’s hand shot up, seemingly confident in her starter calculations.
“So, it’s ten grams of starter, to thirty grams of flour, and then sixty grams of water… right?”
Wrong!
Krissy smiled.
“No. 10 grams of starter, 20 flour, and 20 water.”
Angie nodded confidently.
“Yeah… right. That’s what I meant.”
Girl!
Then about five minutes later…
“Okay, so then if you want more, it’s ten, twenty, forty?”
Girl, please stop!
“No.” Krissy repeated.
At this point I’d stopped mentally correcting her altogether, too busy laughing to be of any use whatsoever.
When Angie and I got the giggles a few times over the mess we were making and got a little boisterous, Ms. “Don’t-test-me-today,” Krissy, threw out her teacher persona with the quickness, to get us back in the game.
Yes, Ma’am!
We got our focus back into the mathematics-chemistry-bread-making class we’d unknowingly enrolled in.
So back to the starters.
Hydration.
Bulk fermentation.
Stretch and folds.
Discard. Eww!
What a word, really?
Proofing.
Feeding.
More ratios.
Scoring.
Calculus.
Percentages.
So now we’ve moved into an accounting seminar?
I’m gonna need to see that email transcript, stat, because someone’s having a right laugh!
The thing is, Krissy had actually tried explaining the sourdough bread-making process to me before.
Weeks earlier, we’d gone for one of our usual walks around the lake. She’d brought along the most delish sourdough stuffed with pesto and cheese.
Maybe mozzarella.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy inhaling it.
As we walked, she enthusiastically talked all about sourdough starter. With me nodding all the way, but girl, I was just grubbing.
Homegirl could have been rambling on about anything with the word “start” in it.
Starting a small cult.
Starting a side hustle selling seashells on the seashore.
Starting a street fight with the elderly couple who had just strolled past us.
I didn’t give a toss.
The bread was good-good and had me all the way locked in.
Future Irene really should’ve paid more attention.
And now future Irene… me… would come to regret that decision.
Stupid, stupid, future Irene!
Back in class, it was all: add in, stir gently, stretch, fold over, wash your hands, wait 30 minutes, then repeat, fifty-leven times, and slowly the puddle in our mixing bowls started taking shape, looking more edible and less oozy.
Well… less oozy until Krissy poured out her dough as an example onto the silicone baking sheet.
Eww!
The slow pull of the dough from the bowl to the table was reigniting my mushroom spores and pustule vibes PTSD, from Angie’s old book club offering, Mexican Gothic. It was like the dough had become self-aware and was slowly making its horror-movie escape. I’m still not convinced it wasn’t about to crawl off the counter and claim Krissy’s kitchen as its own.
Moving quickly on.
After that comparison and vision had passed, it was back to bread form, and it truly looked impressive.
It was kinda fascinating.
Krissy baked her dough to give us that complete cooking-show end result, and after two rounds in the oven, out came a perfectly scored, crusty loaf. Pinterest-could-never.
According to the Sourdough Bread Gods, you’re supposed to let the bread rest for 30 minutes before cutting into it.
So… approximately 0.3 seconds after it stopped giving us third-degree burns, we cut into that bitch.
We ain’t no punks!
The skin on the roof of our mouths will grow back.
Eventually.
By the end of the evening, we all left feeling surprisingly confident.
That is, until the next day.
“What a difference a day makes, (less than) 24 little hours…”
Taking out our dough babies from their cafeteria-hairnet baskets in the fridge, my own kitchen island was surrounded by Krissy’s printed instructions, my iPhone, iPad, and iPanic, and the sourdough group chat came alive.
“Did she say to preheat the Dutch pot with the lid on?”
“Wait… with the lid?”
“Yes, lid on, and all in the oven.”
Krissy cheerfully replied,
“Happy bread making, ladies!”
External heart emojis dotted her comment.
Internally?
I was cussing her out left, right, and center for putting me in this stress-induced position.
“Preheat the Dutch pot. With the lid. The whole thing.”
Check.
My body was getting warmer by the minute, but the oven wasn’t even hot yet.
This ain’t gonna work.
It’s not gonna work.
Then, because apparently chaos hadn’t reached peak capacity yet…
Gina: “It says dust it with bread flour. What is bread flour? I don’t have bread flour!”
Krissy assured her regular flour was perfectly fine.
I, however, was now trying to remember where my girls had left the flour. They are the bakers, not me!
Did we even have any left?
What kind of flour was it?
All-purpose flour?
Organic flour?
Almond flour?
A rose?
A lily?
Damnit Krissy, what kind of flower… I mean, flour??!!
Breathe, bitch!
Gina’s loaf was the first to emerge from the oven.
Golden.
Crusty.
Beautiful.
She mentioned she’d left it in a few extra minutes because she wasn’t sure it had fully cooked.
Everyone, me included, congratulated Gina in the chat.
Internally?
I was all, lucky arse bitch!
Wondering if mine was about to resemble a dusty-looking Frisbee.
Time for me to score my powdered dough.
I was getting close to actual baking.
Now, I don’t know what I’d ever done to upset Krissy because I thought she and I were friends. Mates, even.
So when it came time to attach the world’s sharpest razor blade, like a sail, to the little scoring handle thingy, I was seriously questioning our friendship. Was she harboring a grudge? Did I sleep with her ex? Did I owe her money and she never said?
One wrong move and I wasn’t worried about losing a finger. I was worried about recreating the infamous bucket of blood scene from Carrie, minus the telekinesis.
Who looks at a loaf of sourdough bread and thought, “You know what this needs? A bloody razor blade!”
I hereby declare… I will never use that weapon again.
I skipped the silicone sling and went with parchment paper after Krissy shared a video showing that’s exactly how she’d learned. Why add burning plastic to the mix. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust me.
And then, being careful not to burn off both arms, I removed the one-thousand-pound and now one-thousand-degree Dutch pot from the inferno, placed my dough seated on the parchment paper into it, and with the lid back on, eased the whole thing back into the volcano.
While wiping the sweat from my forehead, I almost shed a tear knowing there were at least six bakeries within driving distance of my home selling this already made.
Nikki’s loaf came out next.
Another golden, encrusted beauty.
Twenty out of ten.
Now, Nikki had warned us from the very beginning that she occasionally burns cookies, so I think we were all quietly holding our breath for her. If anyone had earned the right to be nervous, it was Nikki.
Turns out she casually pulled out one of the prettiest loaves of the day. The woman who doubted herself the most, maybe next only to me, absolutely nailed it.
I imagined the giddiness Krissy was feeling.
Her excitement.
That teacher-mumma pride.
Like she’d just watched a classroom full of kindergarteners successfully tie their shoes for the very first time or finally stop peeing on each other.
Two had graduated with honors.
Denise was next… more perfection, expected perfection, so that made three.
I was next. Wondering if I’d bring down the class average and now Krissy would have to grade us all on a curve because of me.
Left mine in for the same extra three minutes as Gina, damn near burning my retinas staring through the oven glass door for those 180 additional seconds, manning my station like a no-limit soldier… even though I had to pee so, so bad.
When I finally pulled her out… yes, she’s a her because she acted right and came correct. I was beaming, doing my extended-remix happy dance, and snapping paparazzi shots in between.
She was perfect. Sent my pics in the chat and received the same accolade. The class average survived and the A was upheld. Phew!
Then there was Angie.
She’d planned to bake later that afternoon. Except Mother Nature had other ideas, and the storm that rolled in knocked out the power across her neighborhood, and just like that, her sourdough was postponed. But the following day… yep, you guessed it, another solid A with her bread offering.
Ratios-smatios.
And just like that, the sourdough shenanigans came to a triumphant conclusion.
Krissy made us name our starters; it’s a thing in the sourdough community apparently. Mine was easy: Dough + Irene = Doughlene… close enough. #ThanksDollyP
She’s… umm, still sitting in the fridge. Waiting to be fed. I know she’s angry and hangry as hell. One day soon, I’ll remember the one-two-two feeding ratio, deal with hooch and discard or whatever. Hell, who am I kidding? I’m pretty sure Doughlene has long gone on to glory. R.I.P. Doughlene, you were a real one, girl. Even though Krissy said it’s pretty hard to kill it… like she don’t know me? It’s me… hello! She probably already knows Doughlene flatlined.
Future-future me texting Krissy, formulating a solid lie with each letter tap:
Hey Girrrrrl!! Umm, got any more of that starter… you’ll never guess what happened…
This is a mostly true recount of one unforgettable (read: chaotic) sourdough bread-making adventure. All names have been changed to protect the innocent (read: guilty). They know who they are. They know what they did. ❤️
Practicing out loud
Sharing some of my writing, these fiction bits as part of my creative reps, flaws and all. Keep going with your “thing,” too. Small consistent steps, even imperfect ones, make big moves forward.
