Sunday Routine

sourdough starter--fed and ready to separate

I don't think I've ever written about how we spend our Sundays--but if I have, you probably didn't read it, anyway (and if you did, you've probably forgotten it: obviously, I have!).

It's changed a bit since COVID-19--but not a lot. And it's changed a bit since I have to deal with this periodic [insert your own foul adjective here] dizziness.

On Saturday morning I feed my sourdough starter--let it sit for eight or nine hours (see pic at the top of this post)--then remove a couple of cups to put back in the crockery container and save for next time. I leave the remainder in the bowl where it rose, cover it with Saran Wrap, put it in the fridge for Sunday's baking.

(I used to feed the starter on Saturday night, then, the next morning, do what I just described in the previous paragraph.)

On Sunday, we get up at 7. In the Pre-Dizzy Days I used to mix my bread and set it aside to rise, but I can't do that now, so, instead, I unload the dishwasher and put the sourdough from the fridge on a wooden rack in the kitchen to let it warm up to room temp before I begin the baking process.

Upstairs I go to clean up--and shave! (once a week, without fail!)--then head down to work at the computer a bit before Joyce comes downstairs.

When she comes down, in pre-COVID days, we used to drive over to Panera for a bagel and to read the Sunday New York Times--then do our grocery shopping at the Acme store and Heinen's (Acme is in the same shopping center as the Panera).

No more.

Since our staying-at-home began, we now toast a bagel here (we do our grocery shopping online with Acme--pick it up on Saturday afternoon) and read the Times (home-delivered!). Here's a habit: Joyce takes the Magazine first; I take the Book Review. Then I move on to the opinion pages, the arts pages, the news section, Joyce following behind.

After we're done and Joyce heads upstairs to work, I'll lie down on the couch for about 15 minutes (getting my balance back), then mix my bread dough for the week and set it aside to rise for a couple of hours (or more--depending). I clean up my mess in the kitchen. (Yes, I do!)

Then ... another 15-minute rest before heading into my study to start work on that week's "Sunday Sundries," which, as all of you know, I post on this site.

By then it's lunch time, and I have my usual: cup of vanilla yogurt with strawberries and blueberries, a piece of toasted sourdough bread (spread lightly with some preserves from Szalay's Farm Market; my favorites are strawberry, blackberry, apricot.) I rotate the jars. When I run out of one, I move onto the next. I have a big supply of jars because we go to Szalay's about every week in the summer, and I stock up for the fall/winter/spring.

We clean up from lunch, and usually it's about time to shape the bread, put it in the pans, and wait for its second rise (about an hour and a half), during which time I head upstairs for what our little boy used to call a Tiny Nap.

Up from the nap, I go back down to preheat the oven and to sharpen the kitchen knives we use during the week. Just before the oven is ready, I sprinkle the tops of the loaves with whole-wheat flour and slice the tops. And into the oven they go. The aroma fills the house with the inexpressibly wonderful baking-bread-smell--as all you bakers know.

I'll work in the study a little more--or lie down--while it's baking. I'll compose a little doggerel to post along with the bread-pic I'll post on Facebook after the baking's done.

More work in the study.

Then, it's supper time. On Sunday evenings we usually have omelets (I use Egg Beaters for mine; Joyce gets the Real Thing).

After cleaning up the kitchen and starting the dishes, up we go. I put on my pj's and flop in the bed (and, yes, it's usually only about 5:45!) and read from my stack of books--10 pp or so in each--before the streaming commences. (Confession: about 7:30 we each have a sugar-free Popsicle!)

We finish our streaming about 8--lights out--talk (sometimes for an hour or more)--sleep (eventually).

Sound excitin'?

Well, to me it's a lovely routine that I would have abhorred as a teenager (I could not have believed the Old Me would act like this!) but that I now cherish like the Cullinan Diamond.