Starter

Well, this is the first post of my sourdough blog. And, naturally enough, it concerns starters. But first, a bit of my histroy with sourdough. My family moved to Alaska in 1963 when I was 12 years old. My mother created a starter and did some pancakes but that is about all she did. I don't really remember much about it.

In 1977 my wife bought me a copy of "Rita Davenport's Sourdough Cookery" cookbook. She made a starter and we had a Sunday tradition of making fritters, doughnuts or cherry rolls from recipes in the cookbook. We kept the starter going for about 15 years and them through circumstances I won't go into here, it died.

Then in 2007 I decided it was time to do sourdough cooking again. I tried to make a starter but wasn't successful in a couple of tries so I dcecided to locate a commercial starter. Amazingly I didn't find much but what I found was perfect: Alaska's Golden Spoon (http://www.alaskagoldenspoon.com). Go to the web site and read all about it. If you don't want to (or fail at it as I did) make your own starter, this is the one to get. You get a starter with a history, a wooden spoon (I use mine exclusively for sourdough)and you get to support an Alaskan business. (And while you're at it read Lisa's book about dog sled racing!) If you're a Facebooker:http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=178642457969.

That's it for this post. Next time - Sourdough Banana Bread - combining the best of Lisa's recipe with one fro America's Test Kitchen.