Ditch the Google Search
My friends know better than Google.
Just as my partner and I are settled into our new home in San Juan, we’re leaving. A summer trip to Europe has been in the works for a year already, a time for him to reconnect with his family in Germany and attend to various work and bureaucratic affairs. It’s also a time for adventure and maybe even some time off for my workaholic better half.
As soon as the house is in order—clothes folded and hung, books organized on shelves, toiletries tucked into their new homes—it’s time to reverse the process. More packing. I’d be lying if I said it was my favorite thing.
For the most part, things will stay in their place, awaiting our return. We’ve got someone to check our mail and water the plants. We’ll close all the windows and hope that a hurricane doesn’t pummel the island in our absence.
But one thing has been occupying my mind: what to do with the sourdough starter? It was given to me by a friend during our road trip and I’d kept it alive in our cooler until I was able to give it a permanent home in our fridge here in San Juan, where I’ve been feeding it diligently. I even used it for the first time last night, kneading sourdough on our kitchen counter and baking two loaves in our oven for the first time. It’s been far too long since I’ve had bread rising on the counter or since I’ve cut into a crusty loaf of my own making.
I fretted to Norbert about the sourdough starter. Now that I’ve kept it alive throughout our travels, I didn’t want to abandon it! I contemplated bringing it with me on our trip to Europe, but Norbert’s practicality won over. What we needed was a sourdough sitter, I decided. But being new to the island, who did we know that we could trust with our fermented friend?
Mind you, it had crossed my mind to simply turn my dilemma over to the Google search bar, but I’m trying my best to limit my online interactions these days. Not having internet at home helps, and as I wrote last week, my phone is being used solely as a phone and GPS.
“Call Yanna,” Norbert suggested as we tossed ideas around. “She’ll know.”
Yanna’s the person who gave me the sourdough starter several months ago, and she is indeed full of wisdom around all things home and garden.
This morning, I picked up the phone and gave Yanna a ring. She answered from her kitchen in North Carolina with her bright, cheery “Hello!” We talked about our latest baking adventures and how our families are faring. Her garden is in full summer explosion and I filled her in on our new living situation. Eventually, we got to the topic of the sourdough starter and she was more than happy to assuage my concerns. The sourdough would be fine in our absence.
“Experiment with it,” she urged me. “Give some to a friend, put some on the freezer, in the fridge, dry some—see what happens!” Sourdough starter wasn’t as fragile as many think, she shared with me, wisdom she’d learned from another homesteader from Alaska. I let out a sigh of relief; one less thing to worry about in preparation for our trip.
Of course, I probably could have gathered this information from the internet. I’m sure there’s a dark web of sourdough chatrooms, message boards, Reddit threads and Instagram feeds. But had I done so, I would have missed out on the opportunity to connect with my friend on a Monday morning, to hear her laugh and feel her love. Almost conspiratorially, we confessed to one another how much we loved—truly loved—our sourdough starter. Its consistency in a wooden bowl, its aliveness as it bubbles on the counter. “I like to stick my nose into it,” Yanna said. “Like you do with a baby, you stick your nose behind their ear?” We both decided that sourdough starter was one of our favorite things.
And if God forbid, anything were to happen to my beloved sourdough starter, I’d know where to find some more. And no, not on Amazon.
Next time you have a question, try turning to your tribe before the internet. See what interactions blossom, what wisdom gets passed through during this exchange. Why not use every chance we get to connect with our fellow humans?