Field Note Friday, Edition 011: The Worst Part is Waiting

I, like many millenials, have become obsessed with sourdough.

My starter's name is Dolly Start'n, or Dolly, named after Dolly Parton. Dolly is like my little Tamogachi friend (just less needy - no pun intended). Every night, I faithfully discard half of her into another jar, whose use is always to be determined later, and feed the remaining half with 30g of flour and 30g of warm water.

Then, she eats, and I wait.

Waiting is not an easy thing for me to do.

Waiting is, unfortunately for me, pretty much how you make sourdough bread.

All told, a loaf of sourdough bread takes about a day to make. An entire day, dedicated to a singular loaf of bread, and that doesn't include the time it takes to start or maintain the starter itself, which can range anywhere from 5-14 days, depending on the method.

For a loaf of bread.

It's a lesson in patience.

Sourdough is forgiving; you can make mistakes and revive it out of most situations. You can't neglect it, though. Neglect leads to mold, which leads to having to start entirely over. You can take breaks from it by putting it to sleep in the fridge, but you can't forget about it.

Allowing the bread to ferment and rise, taking time every 30 minutes or so to stretch and fold it, is a lesson in presence. For two hours, that's your task. Returning to the bowl, doing the repetitive motion, only to come back and repeat, is a lesson in slowing down. It feels intentional, even if the step itself only takes a few minutes and the rest is just... waiting.

Then the cold fermentation. Where you literally just wait.

The worst.

But it wouldn't be right without it.

So you do what needs to be done, and you wait.

Finally, it's time to bake, but then there's more waiting.

Preheat the oven.

Allow the Dutch oven to sit in the preheated oven.

Oh my God, we're almost there.

And then finally. The long-awaited transfer into the oven. And life is magical and wonderful and there's bread in the oven. It smells amazing. The hearth (standard, modern oven) is warm. All that waiting is almost over, but we're at the glorious end. Smell is engaged — feeling, taste, sight, that's all coming soon.

And when it does, there's no denying it.

Crunching in on that warm bread, whether it's slathered with salted butter, or topped with sliced fresh mozzarella, or tomato, or just plain, it's obvious.

It was worth the wait.