Sourdough Downhill

We make bread about once a week thanks to a sourdough starter I soured in our back closet a year ago. There is a jar filled with happy bacteria living in the back of our refrigerator and they love a weekly super-shot of flour and water to devour.

The weather plays a big part in baking bread. When the sun shines and the air is crisp, the bread rises so much better than at any other time. We spend time wondering what day to bake bread and how much longer to gamble the days and the sourdough's appetite by not baking it.

But even if we bake on an overcast days and the bread texture is denser, it still tastes good toasted with coffee in the morning. The toast is so good, you don't need butter on it.

When the weather is a little overcast, sometimes we bake rolls. My sister came home from Pennsylvania and brought Amish baked bread laced with pecans and brown sugar and cinnamon. So we tried them androlled the dough out into a flat pancake and scooped the brown mixture all over the pancake and then rolled it up and formed a jelly roll loaf or sweet rolls.

I'm trying some of the regional flours I found at Ludgate Farms in Ithaca, NY. The flours are from small regional mills. I hope the flour tastes better than the Wegmans or Wal-Mart flours.

We have been watching the Olympics together. Thank God for downhill events and hockey. The Olympics has become our babysitter throe much of this week. Dad sits quietly tapping his cane watching Bode redeem himself as a medal winner and the hockey games. He becomes confused when he figures out that many of the players are now women. Women hockey players do not make sense in my Dad's eyes.