Weekday Dough Blogging #1 Another fun experiment I started today. Guess what’s in this jar… It’s sourdough starter. This is how it looks on Day 1. I first read about sourdough bread in "Little House on the Prairie" (or one of its series) long time ago. It sounded interesting, but I never thought that I could make it here in Japan. Then I read in Rachel’s site about her sourdough starter, and thought “Gee! If that’s something we can make at home in Japan, I gotta give it a try someday.” Actually I like this kind of project --- keeping (growing?) something in the fridge, feeding it once in a while. I was one of those who jumped on the "Caspian Sea yogurt" bandwagon, though I didn’t continue making it for more than a few months. I got lazy, as you can imagine. Because yogurt is something you eat without heating (usually, not always), I thought I had to be careful about sterilization. Soon I started doubting if the yogurt was so exceptionally nutritious that’s worth all those troubles, and finally quit making it. But sourdough starter is another story; it is not meant to be eaten raw. It sounds like a lot easier thing to take care of. And unlike the Caspian Sea yogurt, I might really love the taste of sourdough bread. But I didn’t try making the starter right after I read Rachel’s posts, because this summer there was absolutely no space in my fridge to keep the starter in a jar all the time. Well, as the result of the heavy duty clean-up I did the other day, now my fridge has space for that. I’m READY. Maybe I should give this starter a name…something other than “doughboy.”