Dough from the telephone pole

05/19/2020 English German

Edition # 134
San Francisco, 05-19-2020

Haircuts At Home With Flowbee Evening City Hikes Standing in Line for Groceries Dough from the telephone pole Sparkling water machine instead of Pellegrino Teddy bears in the window Sewn masks Open stores during Corona Reckless joggers

Dough from the telephone pole

Figure [1]: Someone has attached sourdough cultures to a telephone pole so that neighbors can bake bread.

Angelika Flour and yeast are still scarce in the supermarkets here. Apparently, a large portion of the population has discovered home baking. Bread baking, in particular, seems to be very trendy right now. Amusingly, during one of our evening walks around the city, we discovered some dough remnants sealed in plastic bags, which someone had nailed to a telephone pole along with instructions. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a sourdough starter for bread baking. According to the instructions, it needed to be fed every day with a quarter cup of flour and 2 tablespoons of water.

The instructions were somewhat lacking for me, but I have also never baked bread myself. We also didn't take the sourdough culture with us, which in hindsight was a wise decision. I had a feeling that something requiring daily care would be too much effort for my taste. When I consulted the Internet on how to make sourdough bread, all the entries promised how super easy it would be, but the time factor and the extra kitchen utensils needed, like a proofing basket, were just not for me. I already have enough to do keeping my students in check via video conferences at the moment.