Baking with Mom

My blog has been quiet for a while now, but that is not because I have not been baking bread. Rather, my mom has been visiting me in the mountains and we have been baking together. She has baked some of her standards, including a white sourdough with a delicately soft crumb, and I, my tried and true buckwheat sourdough. Baking with my mother is always relaxing and informative. We’ll enjoy slow afternoons together getting our hands sticky with dough and sipping on full glasses of red wine. She’ll relay tips on how she feeds her milk-based sourdough starter and I’ll explain my methods for kneading wetter doughs. We are certainly different bakers, each with our own styles and preferences, but we both appreciate each other’s breads and relish in thoughtful meals with the family. I ascribe my love for baking to my mother, who nurtured in me as a child an appreciation for putting time, effort, and understanding into the food that you share with others. Baking with her now as an adult is a gift and a true pleasure. I’ll continue my forays into the world of bread experiments soon. But, at the moment, I am enjoying the comfort of the loaves that my mom raised me on.