Welcome to the Book Review Linky Party, a sharing link-up for books! We are so happy that books are once again, back in fashion! And a great way to keep them front and center is to share a review of what you have read, if and how you enjoyed it and if you would recommend the book to a friend! Oh and a story or two of how you came to own or stumbled upon the book would also be fun...
The Book Review Linky will start each Wednesday at 12AM MST
and will run Wednesday through Tuesday of the following week. It is hosted with a full link-up at Homemade On A Weeknight! After linking do be sure to take a look at some of the other reviews. You just might find your next good read...plus it is just good fun to support other readers and bloggers. Reading, like travel is the one area where you can and will spend money and yet, you are much richer after doing so!
I am so happy to be a part of this weekly event!
Reading has always been something I have enjoyed. First as a child visiting the library each week (hello Little House books!), then as a parent and grandparent (Good Night Moon!) and always as a cook in my own kitchen. Cookbooks in particular have played a large part in recipe development and as a means to widen my own limited food horizons! While I might not get to Spain or Germany, through a recipe, I can cook the foods enjoyed there! Not to mention learning how to knit, fix a leaking pipe, or even plant a garden, because books can be a large part of our own, journey of a lifetime!
What am I sharing this week?
Alaska Sourdough by Ruth Allman.
The Real Stuff by a Real Alaskan.
Copyright 1976 by Ruth Allman
Years ago I used to belong to a Cookbook of the Month Club.
It was fun to get a new cookbook in the mail each month. Some I took a great interest in, others I could have left in the warehouse...One month in particular I did not like the cookbook being promoted and I elected to fulfill my club membership with an alternative selection. I picked Alaska Sourdough for that month's selection. I had a desire to bake sourdough bread due largely to my own family history of being so close to San Francisco during my childhood years. A loaf of billowy sourdough could easily be purchased at the market for less than a dollar! And sometimes my Dad would pick up a loaf or two when he was in the city working on commercial refrigeration.
This was about 1975 and I began working on a sourdough starter right away.
First let me stop to explain, that I had no idea then, that where you lived dictated what the sourdough would taste like. Mainly because, a sourdough starter is made by the wild yeasts floating in the air around you. By now of course we had relocated to Yakima Washington, (no where near San Francisco!) I was married and had a small child. But in truth Yakima's wild yeast does not taste like San Francisco's wild yeast. There is something truly magical about the sea and the wild yeast of the Bay Area.
My homemade sourdough bread was nothing like the bread I grew up eating!
And while I loved the handwritten recipes, and the different ways she used the starter from bread of all kinds to sweet desserts. I let the book go to a friend, and never looked back...which also ended my first sourdough baking phase. Fast forward 50 years and my own daughter is baking sourdough bread. Her bread is crusty on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside, just like the sourdough loaves from San Francisco! Serendipity had to be a part of the day when I dropped into our local thrift store. And what should I see on the cookbook shelf, but Alaska Sourdough by Ruth Allman. Needless to say when I went to the counter with my purchases, this book was right on top. Ironically owning this book a second time offered the one tip I needed! When my daughter was thumbing through the book she noticed the tip about adding a bit of baking soda to your starter to temper the sour...
Which was the missing part when developing my own recipe for,
Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread. Whole wheat sourdough can be quite sour. And while many love the deep sour of whole grain baking, it was a bit much for me after setting my standard on San Francisco sourdough! But as Ruth points out in the book, real sourdough gets sour, and while that might be great for bread, it is not as enjoyable in pancakes. Her recipe for pancakes calls for baking soda. She also offers a quick loaf of sourdough bread calling for both starter and yeast as well as the traditional loaf made with starter only. In addition to the many recipes she also offers lots of stories about the lore of Alaska and the sourdoughs that lived there! So happy baking everyone, especially you sourdoughs!
Meet your book nook crew aka the Librarians!
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And with that. I let's go to the Book Review Linky #11!
Thanks for sharing with us, and bring on the reviews!
Not a book for me but that is really interesting...the world is fascinating when you really look into things!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy making sourdough and this reminds me that mine needs feeding. This is an interesting post. I've never seen this book.
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