Sourdough Bread has changed my life. Before Ron knew he wasn’t able to digest gluten, I had been dabbling in bread baking. I stumbled upon Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread approach from Sullivan Street Bakery and was smitten. We live in an 1860 farmhouse where I’m sure many a loaf of home-baked bread has been produced, so I guessed that the bacteria and yeasts floating around in our abode would only help the process.

I baked loaf after loaf. Ron did his best to eat loaf after loaf. I thought I was pampering him, but I was killing him! He didn’t feel well but neither of us knew the cause.

Around that time we invited our gluten-free friend Richard to a dinner party, so we made a whole spread of gluten-free fare. After the meal, Richard pulled Ron aside and convinced him to try to avoid gluten for at least a few days, or until the leftovers were gone, just to see whether or not it made a difference. And what a difference it made! His arthritis subsided and he gained a spryness he hadn’t experienced in a while. That was it. Ron never looked back. No more gluten.

I began omitting gluten from our meals, and even tried my hand at gluten-free baking, but that was a sad and disappointing effort. I gave up. For the longest time Ron relied on commercially produced bread and baguettes. Just OK, and expensive!

Then in late 2020 I discovered Roman Jan’s Gluten Free Bread Home Bakers group on Facebook. Roman’s recipes were revelatory for me because it was the first time I had encountered using psyllium husk as a binder. Finally, I could produce gluten-free bread that wasn’t cakey. It could actually be used for sandwiches without falling apart, which made Ron very happy.

So, I began baking bread again for Ron on a regular basis.

The problem was that I’m not gluten-intolerant, and although Roman’s bread was very, very good, it wasn’t great (for me). I missed eating ‘my’ bread – torn hunks for sopping up garlicky wine broth of mussels, croutons with chew, bread crumbs with body. I began reading about the sourdough craze – “everyone” was baking sourdough bread during lockdown. I was inspired to follow suit. I started with The Clever Carrot site. I read many cookbooks, watched countless YouTube videos, and spent hours Googling for instruction and inspiration, but ultimately, I found that The Clever Carrot site was all that I needed.

So I began baking sourdough. It was a bit daunting, baking gluten-free loaves for Ron regularly, and baking sourdough for myself nearly as often. Then another epiphany! We watched Michael Pollan’s Netflix series “Cooked.” In the third episode, titled “Air,” Michael delved int the alchemy of backing bread. He contended that some folks are who are gluten-intolerant might actually be able to digest sourdough without any problems because of the long fermentation process, among other things. I looked at Ron, afraid to ask the obvious question, and he blurted out, “I’m willing to try it!”

He tried it, and he liked it. No, he loved it! And it didn’t hurt him. My life is much easier now – I bake sourdough bread every two or three days. No more stocking the pantry with myriad varieties of gluten-free flours. My sourdough loaves are baked with King Arthur All-Purpose Flour. Sometimes I substitute up to 200 grams of the AP flour with whole wheat or rye flour. In any case, in our house, it’s all sourdough all of the time. We make sourdough pizza (more on that later), sourdough discard crackers, sourdough croutons, sourdough breadcrumbs… And it tastes so, so good.

So, if you’re not already a sourdough baker and are interested in learning how to master the process, head over to The Clever Carrot site for a thorough and thoroughly enjoyable tutorial on how to make the magic happen. Emilie Raffa has given me the green light to include this link. And oh, by the way, you should check out her book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple as well.