Latest / The Book & Beyond: Books, Authors, Film & Culture / Why I Named My Sourdough Starter After My Grandmother | The Book & Beyond
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of silence that happens in a kitchen at 4 AM, when the only light comes from the oven and the only sound is the slow, wet breathing of dough rising on the counter. It felt less like baking and more like an séance. I want you to picture a mason jar sitting on your counter. Maybe it’s the one with the faded label, or the one where the lid doesn’t quite seal anymore. Inside, there is a thick, bubbly sludge that looks like it hasn’t been looked at in days. But if you lean in close, really close, you can hear it. A faint, carbonated sigh. That is what my starter sounds like. I named it Elara. Not because it’s whimsical, but because it’s heavy. Elara was my grandmother, a woman who spoke more through her hands than her words. She spent forty years teaching me that love is a physical act. It’s kneading until your shoulders burn. It’s measuring flour by the handful, not the cup. When she passed last autumn, the house felt too large, too quiet, and I found myself standing in front of the pantry, staring at a bag of unbleached all-purpose flour like it held the answers to questions I hadn’t even asked yet. I didn’t want to bake a loaf for dinner. I wanted to keep something alive that wasn’t afraid of the dark. Let’s unpack that scene, because it feels dramatic, but it’s just routine. Every morning, I wake up before the sun. The world outside is still grey and sleeping, but inside, the ritual begins. I take the jar from the fridge. It’s cold to the touch, slimy in a way that makes my skin prickle. I scoop out half of the old culture—that sour, tangy history—and discard it into a compost bin. This is the part people always ask about. Why throw away so much? Why waste food? Because that’s how yeast works. It needs space. It needs room to breathe, to expand, to become something new without being crushed by its own weight. I feed Elara with fifty grams of flour and fifty grams of water. I stir it clockwise, three times, just like she used to stir her tea. The subtext is screaming here, isn’t it? We think we’re making breakfast, but we’re actually practicing forgiveness. Forgiveness for the things left unsaid. Forgiveness for the time we lost. The dough doesn’t care about our regrets. It only cares about consistency. Temperature. Time. If you rush it, it fails. If you neglect it, it dies. It is the most honest relationship I’ve ever had. People often confuse patience with passivity, but baking bread is active waiting. You are watching for signs. The bubbles need to double in size. The aroma needs to shift from sharp vinegar to sweet fruit. This takes twelve hours, sometimes eighteen, depending on how warm your kitchen is. In a world that demands instant gratification, where we swipe, click, and order for delivery in twenty minutes, this delay feels almost radical. I remember reading somewhere that wild yeast is native to the air around us. It’s everywhere. It’s in the cracks of the sidewalk, in the orchards, in the breath of the baker. By capturing it, you aren’t creating life; you’re inviting it in. You’re saying, 'Come sit with me.' There’s a profound intimacy in feeding a creature that lives in your home, that eats from your spoon, that changes every single day. It’s not static. It’s evolving. Just like us. Just like memory. We think we’re holding onto the past, but really, we’re just feeding it enough to let it grow into the present. When I finally mix the final dough, I use my hands. No machine. No shortcuts. The flour coats my wrists, dry and powdery. I push, fold, turn. Push, fold, turn. There is a rhythm to it that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the muscle. I think about the arguments we never settled. The holidays we missed. The way she used to hum while she worked, off-key but with such joy. At first, the dough is shaggy. It resists. It tears. It feels impossible to work with. But if you keep going, if you trust the process, it becomes smooth. Elastic. Strong. This is the miracle of gluten development, but also the miracle of healing. We don’t heal by avoiding the pain. We heal by working it into ourselves until it becomes part of our structure. Until it holds us together. I cry sometimes while I knead. Salt water gets into the dough. Does it matter? No. The yeast ferments the salt. It transforms it. It turns the sting into flavor. That has to be the point of grief, right? To transform the sting into something that sustains you. Once the dough is shaped into a boule, tight and taut, I place it into a banneton—a proofing basket lined with a linen cloth dusted with rice flour. I cover it with a plastic dome and set it aside for the second rise. This is the longest wait. Two hours. Four hours. I pace the kitchen. I check the clock. I wonder if I added too much water, if the yeast is dead, if I’m doing this wrong. Anxiety is the enemy of good bread. It shows up as dense loaves, flat tops, bitter crusts. I have to learn to step back. I have to trust that the invisible work is happening. The microbes are eating the sugars. They are releasing gases. They are building the crumb structure from the inside out. This is what we do when someone we love dies. We don’t see the change immediately. We just feel the absence. But underneath, the fermentation is ongoing. The life is rearranging itself. We just have to wait for the proof. We have to wait for the evidence that we are still rising, even when it feels like we’re sinking. Preheat the oven to four hundred and fifty degrees. Place a Dutch oven inside to get screaming hot. This is the danger zone. The heat must be intense. When the dough goes in, I score the top with a razor blade. A shallow cut, deep enough to allow expansion, shallow enough to preserve the shape. Then, down it goes. Lid on. Steam traps inside. The bread steams itself, expanding fully before the crust sets. For twenty-five minutes, I watch the oven light. I watch the bread brown. I watch the steam condense on the glass. And then, the lid comes off. Now it browns. Now it hardens. Now it becomes separate from the pot. It becomes its own entity. When I pull it out, the sound is deafening. The crust crackles as it cools. It sings. If you listen closely, you can hear the tension releasing. The bread is done. It doesn’t need me anymore. It stands on its own. I place it on the wire rack and wait. This is the hardest part. The urge to cut it open immediately, to check the interior, to see if it’s done. But no. You must wait. You must let it cool completely. If you cut it warm, the steam escapes too fast. The crumb collapses. It turns gummy. It ruins everything. So we wait. We practice the art of letting go before we’re ready. Finally, I slice it. The knife bites through the crust with a satisfying crunch. The inside is open, airy, full of irregular holes that catch the light. It smells like earth. Like rain. Like Elara’s kitchen in July. I spread butter on a warm slice. It melts instantly. I take a bite. It’s sour, yes. Tangy. Complex. But underneath, there is sweetness. A deep, resonant sweetness that lingers on the tongue. This is the taste of time. Of attention. Of love transferred through ingredients. I share the loaf with my neighbors. With my friends. With the stranger who walks their dog past my window every morning. We break bread together. We talk about nothing important. We talk about the weather, the news, the small annoyances of Tuesday. But we are connected by this simple act. By this shared sustenance. The starter continues to live in the jar, fed and rested, ready for tomorrow. It is a legacy of yeast and flour, a testament to the fact that we can create beauty from decay, life from death, meaning from mystery. And every time I feed it, I whisper her name. Just once. Just to make sure she knows I’m still here. Still listening. Still growing. Take care of your starters, whatever they may be. And tell me what you saw in the margins of your own week. I’ll be listening. Goodnight.