Lindsay Writes

I am the world’s finest sourdough bread baker.

That’s right, you heard it here.

To put it another way, my sourdough bread is fine.

You see what I did there?

I started baking sourdough bread in 2021. I first developed an interest in making it when I saw images of gorgeous artisan loaves of bread sprinkled throughout Pinterest and Instagram.

And I thought, “Hey, maybe I could do that.”

My fingers poised over the keyboard, I hopefully typed, “How to make sourdough bread for beginners.”

I clicked. And began to read.

And read.

And read.

And skim.

And glaze over.

You see, if anyone has ever wondered what happened to the writers of old, who could write such tomes as “War and Peace”, “Les Miserables”, and “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (in six volumes, no less)”, let me tell you.

They have switched genres.

These writers, to whom writing 100,000 words is but a microwaved taquito in their writing career, have now become sourdough bread writers.

If you’d like to research how to begin making sourdough bread, you’ll need to clear your calendar for a good three weeks. And that’s just the research.

Once you’ve developed tendonitis in your index finger from all of the scrolling through your first recipe, you can move onto the supplies you must have to be a sourdough bread baker.

A Le Creuset Dutch oven.

A yeast crock.

An artisanal bread razor.

Specialty bread flour.

And don’t forget your designer sourdough yeast starter ordered from an organic goat farm in Montana.

Friends, I don’t own any of those things. And I confess, I totally skimmed the beginner recipes and cobbled together a half cocked idea of how to try.

And yet! I still learned how to make sourdough bread for my family.

My first attempts varied wildly in their success, and frankly, they still can, because the weather plays a fickle part in baking sourdough.

But! I tried something new, without feeling the need to become an expert or going all in financially on an experiment.

And I’m okay with that. My husband and kids like my sourdough bread, despite the fact that it will never be Instagram-worthy.

Sometimes, I think the pressure to excel can stop us from ever trying.

And when we never try, we miss out on some great adventures or just the goodness of a slice of warm, buttered bread fresh from the oven.

So, this is your permission to try something new and not be great at it.

Skim the instructions.

Cobble together supplies.

Try and then fail and then try again, and get a little better, and experiment and learn and just keep going.

If you do, someday you too can become the world’s finest.