Solstice Giving & Making

Solstice is a special day for our family. Just as we live within the rhythms of the seasons, solstice time is significant for it signifies the changing course of the year. The darkness will now become lighter with each passing day and with that we will soon start anew with plans for planting and putting forth our energies onto the land and away from the home. However, the light comes slowly (fortunately!) and there are many weeks left of hibernation. There are knitting projects to be completed, baking to be done, nooks to be cleaned and organized. Our family is in the thick of gift-making for one another, friends, family, and neighbors. Lars is into it as long as it includes really. big. messes. Which, for the most part, I'm pretty much okay with. I've got a thick vinyl tablecloth to hold all the glue art and puddles of paint. A necessity for any mother with a little one I'm finding out… Lars is also really interested in drawing and is able to make some of his very own presents this year with his new skills of concentration and dexterity. So sweet.

In addition to crafty endeavors, I have accomplished, what I consider a great achievement in the gluten-free world: sourdough bread from my own starter. And it's really, really sour. I can't give an accurate account of how this came to be since I stopped following the directions from Taproot magazine's latest Bread edition. There was no discernible fermentation or yeasty action going on when following the first few steps of making this gluten-free sourdough starter, so I gave up for a few days and low and behold, it started to rise and smell, well, like sourdough. Many more days passed with some feeding of our starter. Lars named it Hunka-Hunka (as is the custom to name one's starter). And finally, it was ready for the ingredients, of which I also did not follow. I will make a few more batches and find a good recipe of my own to share someday in the near future. I'm thinking sourdough cinnamon buns? Is that weird? Not sure, but it sounds like a worthy experiment.

For the sourdough starter:

1/2 cup of warm non-chlorinated water
1/2 brown rice flour
A Tablespoon of whey was added after 4 days or so...

I kept adding these same proportions at random. Maybe once in the evening and morning. Once every few days. The specificity of feeding a new starter is just too difficult and so I found that haphazardly feeding Hunka-Hunka worked just fine.

A very content boy eating warm sourdough after a warm bath.