People often say that's important to “find opportunities in times of crisis”. Well, this always gets me shaky. I guess it reminds me of my youth trauma, what we in Portugal called ”the crisis”, the times of economic instability and recession — that was devastating in the country, mainly from 2011 to 2015. Now we have begun to face, timidly, a new kind of global crisis that seems so awkwardly to evoke a sense of cosmic response to what we’ve been craving for: to slow down, to decelerate, to disconnect. It’s of course so daunting to imagine the near future and what will we be making with our lives from now on, in this quarantine mode, but if you have the privilege to forget for a while about the bills to pay, I’m inviting you to make something new with this newfound time, at home, to do the things you never do because they just take too long.
With my time, apart from working on the new website, I’ve been reorganizing my home, uncluttering, cleaning up shelves while I look at old photos and meanwhile attending to my fermenting sourdough. So today what I propose is that you can take some of this “free” time from your work-from-home routine or a voluntary quarantine (that’s proven so important to prevent the worst scenario for this epidemic) to get your (washed) hands on your slow-fermented dough.
If you’re in Portugal you can even order amazing quality local stone-ground flour from the center region or the southern region. Just add to this a little sea salt and water and you’re ready to get it started. There is an infinite amount of books, magazines, websites, blogs, recipes, and so many tutorials to help you through your introduction to sourdough baking and creating your starter from scratch. While it rippers, you can just water your plants, reorganize your office or finally read that book you’ve been postponing for months. Because in a crisis like this there is no guilty “self-time”.
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