Sourdough Anniversary

 

It was almost exactly thirty-five years ago when our son, Steve (14) and I (41!), stood on Midnight Dome above Dawson City Yukon, center of the Klondike Gold Rush. (Behind us you can see the Yukon River winding off toward the west, and at the left, the much smaller Klondike River flowing into the Yukon.)

We were there because of The Call of the Wild, a book with which I was becoming increasingly obsessed, a book I’d just taught to Steve and his fellow 8th graders back at Harmon School (Aurora, OH). The book, if you don’t know, deals with a dog, Buck, that is taken to the Yukon to serve as a sled dog.

Steve and I had flown from Cleveland to Seattle, from Seattle to Juneau, from Juneau to Skagway, Alaska (where some key scenes in Wild occur), and rented a car to drive the remaining couple of hundred miles to Dawson City via the Klondike Highway (of which a large portion is dirt).

Along the way we saw and photographed a lot of key locations (including some related to my own great-grandfather, Addison Clark Dyer, who had gone on the Rush and filed a claim that earned him enough to put a down payment on what would become the family farm near Milton-Freewater, Oregon).

Before and after that Dawson City jaunt we spent a couple of days in Skagway, where we hit many of the shops. And in one of them we found some packets of dried Yukon sourdough. I bought one.

And it has changed my life.

When we got back to Ohio, I tried it out for the first time—watched it rise (as it is supposed to), then used the directions to mix my first batch of bread.

A dud. (I did something wrong?!?) But I ate every damn molecule of it, anyway.

The next time it was better, and gradually I adapted the bread recipe until it became what it is today, thirty-five years later.

Over the years I’ve added various flours to the starter—some from Lanterman’s Mill (in Youngstown, OH, a mill once owned by Lanterman relatives on my mother’s side of the family), some from Garretts Mill in Garrettsville, Ohio (where my mother taught English at the high school, where my younger brother graduated from that very high school, where I played baseball one golden summer).

My routine for many years was to feed the starter on Saturday night, then get up the next day, separate and save some of the starter for the next time, and begin the baking process with the rest of it.

During that time I also baked sourdough waffles, pancakes, muffins, pizza dough, biscuits. In fact, when my 8th graders were reading Wild, I would take into school one day some small biscuits, enough that every kid could have one.

But as I grew older (okay: old), it became increasingly difficult for me to do all the work the baking required. I had cancer; I had severe balance problems.

And so just about a year ago, I froze the starter, figuring I’d never use it again unless some sort of miracle occurred.

One did.

Joyce, who knew how much I missed that weekly routine, offered to help.

And so I resuscitated the starter (which took some time and patience), and soon we were back at it. Joyce would do a lot of the assembling of ingredients and implements, would help me clean up. I still mixed and kneaded and shaped and baked the dough.

Joyce has helped me avoid all the turning around—an action that has put me on the floor more than once.

I could not do it without her—as I tell her every week.

I now do only the simplest bread recipe, occasional waffles. And that’s it. I just don’t have the stability to do the others.

Our younger grandson was here visiting yesterday; he’s twelve, has just started seventh grade, and has become very interested in sourdough. So ... maybe ...? Our older grandson, Logan (16) loves the loaves, and I give him one every couple of weeks.

So ... thirty-five years have flown by. Our son is now 49, has one son who is two years older than Steve was when he stood with me on Midnight Dome back in August 1986.

Sourdough starter, by the way (when cared for), is immortal. So here’s hoping that it will live on after me, carrying with it some memories of Alaska, Steve, Joyce, and me. I could hope for no greater legacy!

Some rising sourdough bread dough
that is more than ready to shape!

Yesterday’s loaves.