How To Make Sourdough Bread

I do it in Alaska. Every day. Making sourdough bread, that is! And it's easy! Mix a little flour, water, active dry yeast and sugar together, let it sit and absorb the wild yeast in the air - and in 3 days you have a fine "mother". Use some every day, and feed her every day - that's all she needs to grow and get happily sour. I use fairly large proportions of my sourdough starter with my breads - even sweet breads, at times. It makes everything moist and tasty, and the textures are marvelous. There were season in the past, when we got an existing starter ("mother") at the beginning of the job, from a friendly B&B owner in Cordova. Those batches came from a starter that had been kept alive for many years - and it was very good. Our relationship with this owner has dried up, and so has our sourdough starter supply. But, no worry. Now, I hop off the plane at the Driftwood Lodge (where I cook for salmon fishermen during silver season), and I get my "mother" going. The air in SE Alaska is filled with black flies...er..no, wild yeast, and my starter gets bubbling in no time flat (what a nasty pun, sorry!). Look, I made a lens with lots of pictures and detailed descriptions of how to make sourdough bread. Come visit when you get a chance, o.k.?