Sourdough has become routine.
As routine as Saturday pancake breakfast. As routine as birthday cakes. As routine as washing up after a meal.
I pulled pandemic loaves numbers 47 and 48 from a hot oven yesterday evening and set them to cool on the counter. The bread for the next couple days. No ceremony (not that there ever really was) and no fuss. Just supplies.
As I write this the world is cautiously toeing the waters of the great “reopening” but my employer has settled into a comfortable reality that bringing people back too early will result in more harm than good. So, my life is in a state of “work from home” for another three months.
Which means I’m half way through (optimistically) the great pandemic sourdough experiment of 2020.
Which means my loaf count could conceivably … realistically … legitimately reach the triple digits before I see my work-from-not-home office again.
I’m counting quarantine in loaves of bread. Who’da thunk?
All that said, the flour situation is looking to be somewhat critical.
I’ve been pretty loyal to Robin Hood Flour products through the duration of my baking adventures. No particular reason besides maybe the dominant brand effect. It’s the bold yellow bag that stands out on the store shelves, the brand we’ve always bought.
But flour is a rare commodity these days. I have maybe three batches worth of Robin Hood flour left in my pantry, including some dregs of whole wheat and multigrain, and my bleached bread flour is down to a few cups… of that brand.
A couple months back I picked up a 10kg bag of store-branded flour, and my wife came home with a small sack of organic whole wheat flour that she found on a shopping trip, so… we’re stocked. But… disloyal?
Flour is flour is flour, right?
At least a dozen soon-to-be-baked loaves will give me a clear indication of the answer to that question.