S U N D A Y S O U R D O U G H

Several years ago, I tried to build a sourdough starter. We were in the depths of a Boston winter, but I've never let practical I mixed the dregs of whatever white flour my mother had mouldering away in the pantry with some water, probably cold, and sat the jar on top of one of our clattering old radiators, and...nothing happened. My mother drove to one of our excellent local bakeries and brought back a few loaves as consolation.

I've baked my whole life. The Silver Palate, Joy of Cooking, Bittman, whatever French and Italian cookbooks I could entice my parents to buy for me-- sometimes I cooked the recipes, but mostly I just flipped to the "Dessert" section and covered the kitchen in flour dust. Quick breads, galettes, cornmeal cakes, macaroons, eclairs: I'd make the things I wanted to eat, vacillating between fussy, day-long cakeprojects and the simplest one-bowl cookies. By the time I was a teenager, I could throw together scones and pie crusts with whatever odds and ends I could find in whatever kitchen I found myself in.

I didn't really start doing science until college, and I didn't recognize the parallels between baking and science until much later, when I started graduate school. One day, I brought cookies to the lab and my (completely awesome) lab manager exclaimed "Oh, you're a baker! I always ask people I'm interviewing for lab jobs if they bake." Bakers, she explained, intuitively understood chemistry. This thing + that thing + heat/time/whatever --> something very different--not an addition, but a transformation. Bakers generally know how to follow directions, understand the importance of both precision and flexibility, and are used to the idea of iterative work: you do something over and over, and it gets better each time.

There are many other parallels between baking and science. Both can be done hastily, with back-of-the-envelope calculations and quick, intuitive work--but they turn out better when the observational notes are voluminous, the pipetting or stirring is careful, and the goal is clearly defined. The actual physical work can feel similar, as well. In the lab, I've got a funny little coat and hairnet and shoes, and I'm on my feet, reaching in and out of cabinets all day and watching beakers of liquids get to the exact right temperature, and cleaning endless dishes. In the kitchen, I'm...basically doing the same things, minus the lab coat. The work is physical, tangible, and goal-oriented. There are lots of dishes to wash.

Anyway! Back to the bread! I love bread, and I've eaten some absolutely jaw-droppingly delicious ones in my time. I live in New York, so I have access to plenty of the good stuff, but I want to make my own. I also like science. Bread + science go together. I'm going to write about both, and probably some other stuff, too.

Note: the photo is from one of my first commericially-yeasted loaves, following Serious Eats' "Workhorse loaf" instructions. I totally failed at scoring it, the crumb was as dense as a brick, the bottom was scorched, and the flavor was...bland, at best. But my superpower, or more often my Achilles heel, is that I'll always try the thing that is probably better left to others. So here we are, on a bread-baking adventure. Let's do it!