Sourdough

(Originally written in 2009 just after NPR ended its “This I Believe” program. *Caution, this one uses “colorful language” that may not be suitable for all audiences.)

I believe in feeding “the bitch.” This is the name, after reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, I suggested my husband give to his sourdough starter, a surprisingly resilient organism now demanding daily attention. Before bed, Matthew covers it with a towel. While we sleep, its milky-thickness bubbles, ferments, and grows. In the morning, he skims the waste off the top, and feeds it again. By hand, he kneads this mixture of flour, water, and yeast on Sunday mornings until the dough resists pressure, until it is firm, yet fibrous — smooth, rounded and elastic like a muscle. 

Matthew also starts our week with a whole-roasted chicken — the kind of cooking you smell all day, that permeates your hair and skin. He roasts potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions in the same pot. Later in the week, he boils the bones for stock and every last morsel of edible meat. Butter, flour, milk, and eggs staple our grocery list. We throw nothing away. We savor. I have never tasted cooking so delicious. 

After Matthew comes home from the grocery store and boasts how little he spent, I sit at the counter and watch him maneuver our tiny kitchen. His sleeves rolled up, elbow-deep in flour, he feeds on the provocative male utility to do it himself. He thrives on an intuitive urge to provide by his own devices. 

And his sourdough isn’t just good, it is moist and airy on the inside, crispy and delicate on the outside. Even the marbled design of the bake-lines are a magnificent mark of his craft. Bread and butter daily satisfy our appetites for dinner and dessert. In its simple, primordial way, Matthew’s sourdough satisfies a hunger even deeper than the growl of an empty stomach. 

I believe in the gurgle that wrestles against the dark hours of the night. I believe “the bitch” gives us hope there will be bread tomorrow, that life can be delicious with few ingredients. “The bitch,” above all, sustains us.