Well, it’s over. Ten days of wait and worry are over, and my starter is now complete. I fed it one last time, mixed, and waited. The scent was surprisingly not like a fruity, alcohol-based dessert, rather a tangy, tart, sourdough fragrance was emitted from the goo. I now have my sourdough starter indefinitely. Stored […]

What looks like hummus, and smells like Banana’s Foster? Goo, that’s what. For the last few feedings, when I take the plastic cover off of the starter, I am overcome with a peculiar, fruity, grain alcohol scent. The scent mellows as I stir the starter, reserve 1/4 cup, add the 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and […]

At the risk of sounding too much like Rachel Ray, with her overly perky demeanor, abbreviations to drive you mad (e.v.o.o), and trenchant abuse of portmanteau words– I made s’marshmallows. What is a s’marshmallow? A delightful combination of homemade marshmallows, neatly affixed to soft graham cracker, then slathered in creamy milk chocolate. It all started […]

It smells like a goo-lag in here! Sourdough starter, at least that’s what it smells like it is, is growing strong and taking over my house. The starter was up for another feeding, so I discarded all but 1/4 cup, added 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and 2/3 cup bread flour, and stirred. The proportion of […]

August. The hottest month of the year. Sticky, sweltering heat causing rivulets of sweat to cascade down your back landing in moist puddles in the crook of your spine. Early evening walks, when the heat breaks, and you are left with a dusk so pleasant, that you turn off the air conditioner and throw open […]

Two days have passed, and the feeding has begun. Like a boa constrictor consumes it daily diet of rodents, and small jungle creatures, so too has my rye flour engulfed the 2/3 cup of bread flour it was fed last night. The rye flour was puffy and swollen looking upon its consumption, so there was […]

I admit it, maybe it has something to do with the fact I am a Bay Area native, and here sourdough is like pablum, but I love sourdough bread. The tang, the crumb, the subtle puckery nature, it makes my heart go pitter pat. To me, even a bad loaf of Colombo Sliced Sourdough makes […]

I confess, or Brian does in fact, that his parents do not live in LA proper, they call the Valley home. The Valley is suburban sprawl at its most perverse, where one town seamlessly blends into the next, and north and south of Ventura boulevard delineate the right, from the wrong sides of the tracks. […]

When I first started this site, and was diligently searching the web, looking for proper names, I did a search for “nosheteria,” the perfect combination of the words cafeteria (a place many of us have fond, or not so fond memories of) and nosh (a common Jewish colloquialism meaning a snack). At the time, only […]

No trip to Los Angeles would be complete without a celebrity sighting. And this year’s trip to LA was no different when I saw the perfect “C” level star, Camryn Manheim, strolling down the canals at Venice with her annoyingly precocious son in tow. Ah, I loves me some LA! Last year I had not […]