We let the three year old name the sourdough starter.

I can’t think of  better way to get her involved. And she has been, wholeheartedly. Honestly, her enthusiasm is quite helpful since I have been a bit nervous about the entire process.

This whole bread obsession began when my dear friend and amazing chef, Kusuma of Ruchikala, put up one too many pictures of her gorgeous bread on Facebook. Check out her Bread Gallery and come back to thank me, because you too will be drooling.

I totally understand why, after moving to Portland from Tucson, Kumi became this imaginative baker. Since moving to Colorado I can’t seem to shake the memory of the taste of Barrio Bread. And I am pretty sure my first bite of Barrio Bread happened while hanging with my sweet friend Kumi.

Now, I have no real vision that my bread will ever have the beauty and perfection of Barrio Bread, much less be anything like the creative versions Kumi has been developing, but to provide my own high quality bread to my family is too irresistible.

I had the baking bug and needed to try.

First, I devoured any sour dough starter and bread making video I could find. Then, I consulted with Kumi. Chatted with my Mom. Somewhere in there I decided to buy a wild yeast from Cultures for Health and watched all of their videos. Then I started dreaming of crusty, golden with dark-kissed skin, loaves of love.

Clearly, I needed to do more research.

So, I went to my library and checked out Tartine and Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. In addition if there was a recipe or video about artisanal bread making, I seemed to be watching it. Juliette was by my side the whole time, watching videos or even suggesting we watch them multiple times.

Then we finally started “Johnny”. I gently suggested maybe a female name would be appropriate for The Mother, but when she said it should be called Johnny with such conviction, I had to agree. After several days of feeding and figuring it all out, the day finally arrived.

Actually, I suppose I made that decision the day prior when Juliette and I finally combined the starter together with a significant amount of flour and water into a warm, wet mess that was almost more of a batter than a dough. After all my research, all I seemed to remember was the wetter the better.

In the morning, I was further intimidated as the dough was still insanely wet and I did not really have the equipment that was being glorified in everything I read to create crusty beautiful loaves, such as a dough spatula, proofing basket or dutch oven.

But, I carried on.

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As Julie Child states:

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

I just never thought it applied to baking. I did follow another piece of advice from somewhere that if you poke the dough and it slowly comes back, then it is ready to go. I can’t remember what it means if that didn’t happen, but I lucked out and it slowly came back after a quick gentle poke. Overall, I hardly was unprepared, but when that cast-iron pan sat there smoking hot and the dough was a globby, blobby mess, much more so than any other dough I have worked with I found myself wanting to cry a bit as I envisioned the past few weeks of anticipation going to waste with a flopped blob.

But, I didn’t even tear up.

I just maneuvered the dough into the pan on top of the cornmeal. The cornmeal folded within the dough a bit. Oops! Oh well. Then I topped the sticky mess with the stock pot even though it hardly sealed it. Then I prayed the pan wouldn’t fall and tumble all over my sticky dough as I visualized everything sliding around the oven to create a complete disaster.

But, disaster never came.

After just 30 minutes, Juliette and I removed the stock pot and looked at a shiny skinned, nicely risen ball of dough. The skin had broken into bursts of delightful crustiness.

Another 15 minutes into the process and the result was seriously not what I was expecting: beautiful!

The flavor is a subtle sour dough with a crusty crust and a dense, crumb with slight airiness in the center. I am hardly a bread critic…

But, this bread made me happy.

I told Xerxes as we nibbled on the finished product that I completely understood why people apprentice themselves to a baker. This is not a straightforward craft.

But, I am grateful to have tried it.

And I can’t wait to try it again. Johnny is ready to go for round two!