Hudson Valley Astrologer

“What did the flour say to the starter?”*

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Sourdough bread making is all the range of late, but I’ve been at it for a while. To be fair my bread making slowed to a crawl for too long, but then I had dinner with a friend. She served the most amazing bread for dinner. I nearly fell off my chair.

The deal is that she has been making bread for decades and she was taught by her mother who just turned 99, and had made a starter back in the 70’s. Each starter has its own unique bacteria apparently and whatever magical yeast is swimming around in her starter seems to love flour protein. I imagine those little yeasties smilin b’cuz when you bite into the bread the first thing you do is smile.

Here is the thing! She gave me some yeast. Gifted it I think is the proper term. So, ever since I’ve been in sync with the new trend which is really just an old hobby of mine. But holy smokes some of the creativity out there in social media land is mind blowing.

My sister, who fell down and said she died and went to heaven when she ate some of my bread, sent me an Instagram of a sourdough breader who makes her bread, but then sticks a homemade candle made from Kerry’s Gold butter in the center. As the butter candle melts, you take a slice from the side and dunk it in right next to the flame for what I guess would be a slice of heaven. I’ve not tried that yet. But maybe we’ll come back to it.

My crazy business idea is to customize a loaf made to order for someone’s birthday instead of making cake. By using a stencil and placing the symbol of their sun sign on the bread, and using a lame to decorate other glyphs around their sun sign symbol, I can personalize each loaf of bread. Instead of 40 candles or whatever number to match your age we’ll just use one butter candle. Yum! No need to ask “how old are you now?”

O.K., maybe not the craziest idea. Not when you can send someone a birthday wish on a potato. LOL! Who wouldn’t love a potato gram? That business, which is an actual business by the way, generates over $10,000 per month.

My idea is crazier because it takes 18 hours to fold and proof one loaf of bread, and then 50 minutes to bake. To generate $10,000 per month I’d have to make 2000 loaves a month which is 36,000 hours if I make them one at time (really crazy). But since there are only 720 hours in a month I’d need to make batches of bread, 50 at a time. (Really, REALLY cray cray)

Maybe I’ll just do special runs for family, and friends, and special clients, and keep this offer for promotional purposes only, but to also spread the love.

HVA

💚🍀

• Answer: “Without you my life is crumby!”