So much has changed since my last Karen’s Kitchen-recipes for the home-cook blog entry. We were still in the thick of the pandemic and my life was pivoting from the home-cook who shared her tried and true recipes to becoming a sourdough baker. My last entry was about working my way through the Tartine cookbook and sharing my journey with you. Life had different plans for me. Instead, of making every recipe from a cookbook. I started a small business from my home. I became a cottage food operator and slowly built a micro-bakery out of my home kitchen.

I was always an intuitive cook. I loved to improvise and measure ingredients with my heart. Baking always seemed to rigid and kind of boring to me. During the pandemic with more time on my hands, I decided to explore sourdough. Sourdough didn’t seem like baking in the traditional dessert sense. It was bread, not sweet at all just flour, water and salt. Somehow, it felt closer to cooking to me. I learned I would need a scale, food thermometer, lame to score the bread and lastly a sourdough culture. I made my own flour culture, and went to the university of Youtube and Instagram to learn and figure out everything. At first, I was really intimidated by the scale and measuring in grams. So many new terms to try and figure out like autolyse and levain. It’s was definitely like stepping into a whole new world of cooking.

I made my first sourdough boule on April 27th, 2020. I have been addicted ever since. I bought the Tartine cookbook and it really streamlined the way I bake now. If you bake sourdough you know that you can never bake just one. I always made two, one for home and the other for my work family. My work family really enjoyed the homemade bread. Some of them began asking if they could pay for a loaf to keep for themselves. At first, I resisted payment but then money was literally being placed into my pockets. That’s how Wildflour Artisan Sourdough was born.

My first loaf

In hindsight, my first loaf was not great but at the time it was the best loaf I had ever tasted. I really fell in love with the process. I knew it was something I wanted to be good at. I will always chase the perfect loaf. I have cooked/baked so many things in my life but nothing is as satisfying as homemade bread.

I am no longer Karen’s Kitchen. I had to change the name of my blog so that I can share with you all things related to the world of sourdough and small business. I want to discuss the politics, environmental and social impacts of our grain economy. Specifically, regenerative farming and preservation of heritage grains. I want to explore the health benefits behind sourdough. I want to share with you the trials and tribulations associated with a micro-bakery. This will be written in a very informal way. Almost like diary entries. Things on my mind that might also interest you. I am looking forward to pouring my heart out again. Cooking/baking are definitely my love language. Sometimes I rather let the food do the talking. If only you could taste what I write about. Until the next time my friends. Happy Baking!