Our sourdough had a baby!

We recently shared some sourdough starter with a friend, since this is the easiest way to get sourdough started. It is also the easiest way to implement our plan of world domination. Slowly, our sourdough will take up residence in all of our friend’s kitchens, and then their friend’s kitchens, and then their friend’s friends kitchens, and then one day- ONE DAY- they shall be reunited in one massive sourdough uprising and we shall ride the giant sourdough wave to become the new leaders of the world.

Moohoohaahaahaa.

It’s not the most effective path to world domination, but definitely the least time-intense. So far, our sourdough has traveled to two kitchens beyond ours in the last three years. World domination is slow going. Also, it does not follow our commands, which is inconvenient for training purposes. Like, just yesterday, I told the sourdough to take out the garbage, and it did not. I raised my voice and it still did not. I threatened to make it all into bread goddammit and it simply sat there, petulant. It is kind of a jerk like that. In the meantime, I have to mollify my hunger for world domination with actual sourdough bread. Which isn’t a bad second, really. And which tastes better with butter than world domination does, anyway.

And it is why coming into the office today rocked, because there was this!

And in addition to the aluminum foil, there was this! 

A loaf of fresh sourdough bread baked from the sourdough starter we gave to our friend. Our sourdough starter had a baby!

Wait. Does that make me a grandma? I am vaguely uncomfortable with this, now that I think about it. I should have had a frank conversation with it before we sent it off to live with friends. Maybe I should have done a background check on these friends, too, or at least asked them questions like, “What are your intentions with our sourdough?” (Right answer: take care of it and be sensitive to its needs. Wrong answer: make hooch out of it. That’s an actual thing, ya’ll. Look it up. And my sourdough is not that kind of dough.) I didn’t explain to the sourdough about the need to practice safe reproduction. Did it even think to find out what kind of flour it was getting involved with? Or filter the water before spending the night with it?  Did it carry cash for a cab ride, just in case? How often would it call home? Regularly, or erratically and only when it was hungry? Would it show its little ones pictures of us so they would recognize us when we got together on occasion? I spoke of none of these things before handing it off to our friends weeks ago. 

No matter what, sourdough, I am proud of you. You can always call home, and your baby is beautiful.  (And good with butter.)