early adventures in sourdough

Being rather a creature of habit it takes an act of God, or the valiant shoving of a friend (not that those are necessarily different) to get me to do new or different things. In this case I have been making bread in exactly the same way for about 14 years--the precise way my dad showed me when I was at the point of wanting to make bread. Well, I mean, of course, I've made adjustments--mainly on the size of the loaves and how often I make it and how lazy I'm being. So basically I have had no interest in the no rise excitement, even though it would mean buying new kitchen equipment, or any other excitement that requires thought and change.

But my friend arranged herself comfortably in my living room and bestowed something that looked like this

upon me.
And so what could I do but make a big fat chart of when to add flour and water and when to add salt and when to start the whole process all over again and spend the week fussing over it.

And do you know? Not only is it not too hard, it feels all pioneering and all grid-fail-exciting. And it's been a great providential blessing because I am, as Marigold would say, Actually all out of My Own Yeast. So there you are. An Adventure, as it were. Maybe later I'll post about how I've already been cheating, but don't get too hopeful. I'll probably just do something else.