August 27, 2011

Sourdough Saga

On several occasions, I have done some petsitting/farm tending for our friends and neighbors, Greg and Robyn. So far, except for one dead horse and one dead chicken, my track record has been pretty good. This most recent time, in addition to the cats, the livestock and a couple houseplants, my list of charges included a sourdough starter. Now, Joe and I have had several sourdough starters over the years, and they've all done quite well for a time, but they've also all taken a turn for the worse and ended up quite foul and dead. I was a little bit nervous that we'd somehow jinx this sourdough, but what could really go wrong in a week, eh?

We transported the starter to our house for the week so we'd be sure to remember to feed and stir it daily. Things were a little iffy right from the start. On the first day they were gone, I was leaving our friends' house with the bowl full of starter when I tripped on the step from their kitchen down into the mudroom. It was one of those weird, slow motion falls, and after a couple of twists and turns, I miraculously ended up on my feet, up against a wall, tangled in a pile of shoes. I was still holding the bowl of starter and canister of flour and had managed to not drop or spill either one. Whew!

From there, things mostly went smoothly. Mid-week I noticed some small patches of mold growing on the upper edges of the starter bowl. I scraped them off, and Joe, our main sourdough expert, assured me it was fine.

Greg, Robyn and family were returning from their beach vacation this afternoon, so I had only to return the starter to their house and do the morning chores. I also needed to look up some directions to a baby shower I'm attending momentarily, so I grabbed the computer to make use of their internet connection while I was over there. So, with the computer bag over one shoulder, and the starter bowl and flour canister in my arms, I headed out the door. This time I tripped at the top of my own porch steps, and had another harrowing slow motion fall, from a much higher point than before. I screamed the whole way down with this one, but once again, with a couple of mid-air twists and hops, I miraculously managed to land on my feet. I even held on to the bowl of starter, although I definitely spilled some this time! The computer bag, the flour canister and myself were all covered in sticky sourdough starter. Although I was unharmed, I was definitely shaken. Joe had heard my screams and left his yoga session in the yurt to see what was wrong. When he found me sitting in the yard covered in globs of sticky white stuff, his first thought was that the guineas had flown over and dropped some serious poop on me.
Our computer bag does kinda look like a huge bird pooped on it. Smells pretty bad, too. :(
We managed to get most of the mess cleaned up, and there was even a substantial amount of the starter left in the now incredibly sticky bowl. I had planned to switch the starter to a fresh new bowl and wash out the old one, so it was just as well. Back in my friends' kitchen, I was just about to pour the starter into the new bowl when I noticed something moving around. Looking closer I could see that there were several dozen little fruit fly grubs happily swimming around in the starter. Yuck!! That was definitely the final straw. The whole batch was immediately dumped in the field and the bowl hosed and scrubbed clean.

When I called to explain why there'd be no sourdough starter waiting for them when they got home, Greg had to hang up quickly because their daughter had just tripped and fallen down some stairs. Hmmm…sounds like we were having similar mornings. Sorry Greg! As Joe said, there was definitely some bad joo-joo (sp?) around this sourdough, so maybe it is best to just start over.

2 comments:

canningmama said...

your stories never cease to amuse me! :)

Anonymous said...

Hahaha. That was the most entertaining post! I apologize for my laughing, but that was just comical. :P Definitely some bad joo-joo.