My Mother, My Starter | Kerri Conan
How saving a sourdough starter took on the shape of grief
Before popping the top to take a whiff, I stood lit by the open refrigerator and turned the cold jar in my hands. I’d just returned home from two months at Mom’s bedside, helpless to keep her alive. And now my starter and I are weepy globs, a shadow of our bubbly selves, oozing the strong smell of alcohol.
I’ll save you, I whispered, letting the wet rye suck me under like quicksand.
In the Anna Rae Conan slideshow that orbits my head, she made sourdough bread when I was little, but it’s hard to be sure. She cooked, sewed, fixed, crafted, and grew everything. Papier-mâché. Ceramics. Candles. Decoupage ashtrays. Nude drawings and etchings. Macramé sculptures. Wire figures. Paintings in oil, acrylic, pastel, and watercolor. Barbie clothes that matched our outfits, down to pearl buttons and velvet trim. Ski pants for the whole family. Two fancy dresses for my Junior Miss farce. She hung wallpaper, laid flooring, tiled bathrooms, antiqued old furniture, and grew plumeria, cantaloupes, string beans, and broccoli. Her cornflake-crusted baked chicken was so crisp that as you chewed you could hear crackling behind your eardrums.
Only gardening and cooking — OK, and an underutilized knack for papier-mâché — rubbed off on me. I can do anything, though; A.R. taught me that. She was a teacher all right. Thousands of kids passed through her junior high classrooms during their peach fuzz years. Thinking of the influence she had on all these lives — people who don’t know she’s gone yet carry a piece of her with them — sparks another round of tears. Where would I carry my nugget of her?
Less water is what the starter needs to rebound, or so is the consensus among the online and collegial sources rallied for consultation. Beyond that, the only other agreement is frequent feedings during triage. But I can’t muster visitation that often; my raw grief is penance enough.
Catholic Friday in our 1960s kitchen: Milk-poached sole. Cracked Dungeness with homemade mayo and cocktail sauces. Frocia, usually made with spinach or leftover noodles. Breaded eggplant baked in sour cream and mozzarella. When Sissy and I ate cheesy tuna loaf or begged for fish sticks, she’d make herself a sardine sandwich. (I make the same choice now.) Spaghetti with garlic, Parmesan, dried herbs, and olive oil she called “alla ghierga.” A little help with the reference, please, someone? It’s spelled phonetically here, her voice dictating to me clear and bright.
Midnight Mass. Kid’s jingles. Christmas carols. Acapella anything. Blues and jazz standards spun as lullabies. Karaoke. Piano bars. Evening practice at her grand. She and Dad picked up a real bargain at a repossession warehouse in San Francisco; reach out if you know someone — we’re desperate to find her beloved instrument a new home.
My heart says to simply feed the starter; I wait for a reply from Mom, that voice. How could I ignore one drop? I manage, though, holding back 125 grams, a little more than usual. I lather and scrub the remaining death from the jar to give what I reserved, the mother I’ve nurtured for more than a year, a chance at survival. Then I stir in equal parts water and rye. Damn what anyone says about too much water.
The one who hatched me loved eggs. Deviled. Coconut macaroons. Crème brûlée. Rice custard. In the nest. Hard boiled until the pot accidentally went dry and they exploded all over the kitchen. Pickled. Sliced with a special tool that may have been her mother’s. After she couldn’t use the stove anymore, she scrambled eggs perfectly with cheese using a ceramic mug in the microwave, watching and stirring like a hawk.
Decades ago, Dad wooed clients with Mom’s renditions of restaurant dishes, like tableside Caesar, palm-size spinach-ricotta tortelloni, and braciola tied meticulously with thread. Or maybe a grill-load of shish kebabs was on the menu, or New Joe’s Special — a skillet of chopped beef, eggs, and spinach. (We ate a lot of eggs and spinach when I was little.) Whatever the main, dessert was either coffee-pecan pie or a sugar-crusted domed cinnamon cake with warm lemon curd sauce. Lord, I’ve got to find that recipe.
Cocktail parties. Pigs in the blanket, fondue, bacon-wrapped mushrooms and olives, fried-and-sauced meatballs, briny crab dip, giardiniera with slightly overcooked vegetables. Artichoke spread. Biscotti, rum balls, Russian tea cakes, and pralines. A.R. set an elegant table — including napkin rings she fashioned from gold-leafed plaster of Paris — or a functional buffet with warming trays and chafing dishes. Dad ran the HiFi and bar while Mom replenished hors d’oeuvres. She entertained calmly, wearing full makeup and an updo, in maxi dresses sewn in the wee hours of the previous evening.
My job was to polish the silver. You’re just supposed to let it oxidize now.
Maybe I should expose the starter to absorb whatever’s left of the yeast swirling around my kitchen. I decide to let the jar sit open for 19 hours to jumpstart salvation fermentation. I frequently stick my face up close for signs of breathing. I got you, mama. I got you.
Next morning, no visible action, but the starter smells yeasty, not so boozy. Hope prompts more consulting. I cherry-pick advice — as Mom would have — and decide to keep 100 grams of life-support starter and add 100 grams of rye flour and 50 grams of water, then wait and see another day before giving up. Has anyone seen my corkscrew?
I woke up early, this round now clocking in at 21 hours at room temperature. It smells good enough to taste. I dip in a finger and notice some bounce but no bubbles. Plenty dry, though. Bastard advice online. I pull out 110 grams, match it with water, and stir the slurry until smooth; then add the same in rye flour. Now I’m checking my mother frequently.
In a couple of hours, bubbles. I make a gorgeous loaf and return to the usual weekly feeding-and-baking protocol. Thank you for not dying, I say, this time out loud, relieved to hear my mother answer.
There are countless ways to make starter and this is (as far as we know), the fastest and easiest. It does take a couple of days, but once established, “maintenance” is simply use: If you bake bread weekly, or even somewhat less frequently, this starter can be stored in the fridge more or less indefinitely. Our technique is to boost the starter whenever you bake, but if you prefer you can just feed it weekly or so, and use the excess to make pancakes, for which we’ve included a recipe.
So: In a bowl (or a plastic-covered container), combine 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast with a 1/2 cup of flour (whole wheat is best, but all-purpose is fine here) and enough water to produce a thick batter – 3/4 cup or so. Stir that, cover it with plastic or the lid, and leave it at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours.
You can feed this once or twice a day; either will work, but twice a day will give you faster results. Just add another 1/2 cup of flour and enough water to restore the texture to batter-like. The mixture will be bubbly and smell yeasty. (If it gets too big for your container, you can discard some or, again, make pancakes – but that’s not a requirement.) After three or four feedings – probably by the second day and certainly by the third (counting the first day as zero) – this starter will power any sourdough bread recipe, and you’ll never need yeast again. (Or you can wait up to 72 hours before using it; just cover and refrigerate it until you need it. You can wait even longer if you keep feeding it.)
Every time you bake—or once a week if you’re not baking anything — feed the starter roughly equal weights of flour and water to compensate for whatever you use. (Occasionally you may add a little more water to keep the starter loose enough to easily spoon or pour.)
Pancakes
Makes: 12 hearty pancakes (4 servings)
Time: 8 to 12 hours for the jumpstarter. Up to 24 hours hibernation (optional but helpful). 1 to 2 hours to mix the batter and cook (depending on whether the jumpstarter hibernated).
Assuming you want these for breakfast, get things rolling before you go to bed. (If you want breakfast for dinner, start in the morning.) A couple of technical notes about the cooking: Whole wheat requires you maintain a slightly lower temperature than you’d normally use to cook pancakes; this gives them time for maximum rise while ensuring the centers are cooked through and the outsides are perfectly browned. You can make them any size, but we like to keep them on the small side, which makes them easier to maneuver in the pan or on the griddle.
- 100 grams whole wheat starter
- 225 grams whole wheat flour, plus 50 grams for feeding the starter
- 300 grams whole milk, plus more if needed
- 50 grams water for feeding the starter
- 30 grams turbinado sugar (about 2 tablespoons)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch salt
- 2 eggs
- 30 grams butter, melted (about 2 Tbsp), plus more for cooking and serving
- Maple syrup for serving
Combine the starter, 100 grams of whole wheat flour, and 100 grams of milk in a large bowl. Stir, scraping the sides and bottom as necessary, until all the flour is absorbed. Cover with plastic or a damp kitchen towel and let it sit at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours. (Meanwhile, feed the remaining starter as described above.)
When you’re ready to make the pancakes, add the remaining 125 grams flour and 200 grams milk, along with the sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir just to combine, then add the eggs and melted butter and stir again until almost smooth; some lumps are preferable to overmixing. Add a little more milk if the batter doesn’t plop from the spoon easily. Cover and let the batter sit until bubbly, at least 30 minutes but no more than 2 hours.
Heat the oven to 200°F. Fit a wire rack into a baking sheet and set it in the oven. Heat a large griddle or skillet (preferably cast iron, carbon steel, or nonstick) over medium heat. When a couple of drops of water skid across the surface of the pan before evaporating, it’s hot enough. Put a pat of butter on the griddle or in the skillet. When the butter stops foaming, ladle in enough batter to make pancakes about 4 inches across each. Spread the batter evenly as necessary; you want them about 1/4 inch thick.
Cook, undisturbed, until the edges are set and bubbles appear in the center of the pancakes, 2 to 4 minutes. Adjust the heat as needed; you want there to be some sizzling without burning.
Carefully slip a spatula under a pancake and peek to see if it’s brown on the bottom; at this point, you can rotate them on the same side to cook more evenly if you like. Once the bottom is brown, turn the pancakes. Cook the second side until lightly browned, another 2 to 3 minutes. Serve right away or transfer to the pan in the oven to keep them warm for up to 15 minutes while you cook the rest. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding more butter to the griddle as necessary. Pass maple syrup and more butter at the table.
