I was not a good cook in my 20s. I didn’t have to be. My jobs were all in the Food and Beverage or Hospitality and Tourism industries. Because of these jobs, I had no shortage of food.
When I had to eat something at home, it was Ramen or frozen pizza. This isn’t very comfortable to admit, but there were more than a few times that I would manage to burn the pizza or forget about the boiling water. Let’s just say that it is a good thing that the places I lived had working fire alarms!
Fortunately, my cooking improved…eventually. Now, I am a decent cook; at least, my husband says so. Even so, baking is not something I have ever been good at, and it wasn’t until this last year that I have improved. Not only have my baking skills become existent, I have even succeeded at making sourdough!
If you don’t know about sourdough, let me use this moment to tell you a bit about it. Making sourdough initially seems intimidating since you need specific kitchen cookware and containers. You must feed your starter, and the bulk rise varies depending on weather, humidity, and altitude. There are also terms like discard, fermentation, autolyse, and scoring. When I say that it feels overwhelming at first, that can be an understatement.
Initially, I would watch my sourdough starter with anticipation and worry as I added flour and water, waiting for it to double in size. I used dry-erase markers to mark the different levels and the time I started it. I would try numerous recipes and go down rabbit holes online of sourdough baking. I was a bit obsessed. I was eating, breathing, and thinking about sourdough all the time!
Now, a year later, I am more relaxed about sourdough. I have found my rhythm and the recipes that work for me, and I tried different things like pancakes and biscuits. I have learned to see how my sourdough is doing by sight- bubbles are beautiful things. I have also learned to just enjoy the process.
Over the course of this year, making sourdough has become rewarding to me. There’s something about seeing the process and enjoying the end result that is so fulfilling. Everything from the sight of those bubbles letting me know my starter is robust to the smell of the dough and the feeling of working the dough with my hands is enjoyable, with each step leading to the next in a smooth transition.
Yet, the thing I love most about sourdough is the time and planning it takes with each step, leading to a beautiful finished product. I can’t just wake up and make sourdough bread. Preparing the starter in both amount and quality takes a couple of days. I must be intentional with my time and focus; honestly, intentionality has never been my strong suit.
By baking sourdough, I have learned to apply cooking principles to life in general. Like sourdough, beginning anything new can be intimidating and overwhelming. Perhaps you want to see the final result without taking the time to learn how to do it slowly. Maybe you start with a discouraged mindset, overwhelmed by the process of making your life better. You may even get frustrated when things are not easy or when you mess things up. I can’t tell you how much sourdough I have had to discard because I did something wrong with the batch.
Through learning how to make sourdough, I have also been able to apply what I have learned to relationships. We all know that good relationships take a while to develop. To be a friend, you must be intentional and set aside time for the other person. There is no magic recipe for each person, and each connection you make with others will be different and go through various phases, and that’s a good thing!
To sum it up, don’t focus on the end without enjoying the learning in the beginning and the process in the middle.
FaithfullyRedeemedLife 