Live Like the World is Dying: James Stout on Sourdough (Patreon)

Episode Summary

James teaches Margaret about sourdough bread. He provides specific instructions on how to start a sourdough starter, keep it alive, and how to then turn the starter into tasty bread. Margaret and James also discuss the intricacies of British vs American English, and Margaret learns about a magical Belgian spoon.

Guest Info

James Stout (He/Him) can be found on Twitter @JamesStout or on the podcast It Could Happen Here. James has a book out called "The Popular Front and the Barcelona 1936 Popular Olympics." You can find it here.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: James on Sourdough

Margaret  00:15

Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Margaret killjoy, and this week we're talking about that thing you're supposed to conquer: bread. We're talking about bread. Specifically, we're talking about sourdough. And we're talking with James Stout about sourdough. And that's what we're going to talk about. It's gonna be really exciting. I didn't make that sound exciting, but it is. Bread, and baking, and all that shit, something we haven't really covered on here before. And, it's something that I'm really curious about. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts, and here's a jingle from another show on the network. [Hums a nondescript "jingle" melody]

Margaret  01:36

And we're back. So James, if you would be so kind as to introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then kind of a little bit of your background with I guess, in this case, like bread or preparedness or stuff like that?

James  01:49

Yeah, totally. So I'm James. He/him for me. I have my background for this....let me think...I grew up in the countryside. So, I grew up like with animals around, with growing a lot of our own food too, just because that's the way we did stuff. And I think I moved to America in 2008. And without condescending too much, your bread is shit. And so, I was appalled by it. And I've been making my own on and off when I've been home long enough to do it ever since, I guess. And now I still live in the United States in San Diego. And I try and have a little bit of the, like the that sort of, I guess, like preparedness/countryside kind of life. Like, we have we have backyard chickens, and we bake our own bread, and we grow a lot of food too. So, I still try and keep up with all that stuff.

Margaret  02:41

And that's inside the city?

James  02:43

Yeah, we're not like...I don't want to make it out like we're in a high rise. I have a tiny yard. And then we've, I guess we've liberated the area in between the pavement and the road. I don't know what that area is called.

Margaret  02:58

A median.

James  02:59

A median. Yeah, it's been...because that's, that's like...

Margaret  03:02

Well a medians in the middle of the road. [Sounds unsure] Huh?

James  03:04

Yeah.

Margaret  03:05

I don't know. I should know.

James  03:07

Yeah, you know what I mean, that area that's like liminally public/private. And public, in the sense of owned by the city council, and you can do fuck all with it. Which, you know, isn't great. So, I obtained some lumber and I've tried to put planters out there as well.

Margaret  03:24

Oh, nice. What do you grow up?

James  03:25

Yeah, So I grow a number of things. I get them from...We actually had a very nice older guy...the other day and an older couple had left their keys in their car. And so I took the keys and put them in the house and left them a note saying, you know, "Come get them." And then they did, and they gave us a voucher  when they came and got them, they gave us a voucher for a garden center. So, I'm going to restock my vegetables. But right now I think I've got kale. I like to go...so I do a lot of work in Tucson with a group of indigenous people there, and I like to buy indigenous plants. So there are a couple of nurseries in Tucson and go to. So, I think we have wolfberry. We have agave. We have golden currants. We have carrots. We have kale, Thai chilies, and beetroot.

Margaret  04:15

So this is a terrible...I haven't eaten dinner yet. This all sounds very good.

James  04:22

Yeah, this is...You're gonna be ruined when I bust out my bread from the oven.

Margaret  04:28

I mean, honestly, like bread is...I love bread. I understand that everyone has different body types and different diets. I'm so grateful. I'm not gluten free.

James  04:42

Yeah.

Margaret  04:43

I love gluten

James  04:45

Gluten is my guide star. If someone...I have diabetes, right? And it's like, I think there's a 10% coincidence of autoimmune diabetes and celiac, and I spent some time volunteering with diabetes education and various kinds of places and just...I remember like staying with some folks--and we all have diabetes, so it's fine--I was like, "Fuck, you have celiac as well? That sucks." Like, yeah, it must be profoundly difficult for people, and I'm sorry for them. There are ways to make your own--I think Bob's Red Mill has a pretty good celiac or gluten free blend that you could probably use with a sourdough starter. Certainly, if you fed that starter that flour over time and sort of messed around with your recipe you could probably get something going there. But it's not something I've spent a lot of time with. Fortunately, I'm blessed to be able to digest gluten.

Margaret  05:37

So, what is sourdough? Okay, I mean, I sort of know, but I feel like this is a good starting point, right?

James  05:45

Yeah. So, it's spontaneous fermentation bread, right? I guess...Like these days, people might be more familiar with like spontaneous fermentation beer like lambics and stuff.

Margaret  05:55

No, I don't actually know what spontaneous fermentation means.

James  05:58

Okay, so it's when you're capturing wild yeast--and capturing as a strong word--you're encouraging wild yeast from the atmosphere to come and live in a certain place. And then you're using them to ferment you're bread, or your beer, or what have you.

Margaret  06:11

Okay, so rather than going and getting yeast you're counting on...This is the way that you make alcohol in prison, right?

James  06:18

Yes, yeah. So I'm told. I'm sure. I mean I don't have firsthand experience with it. But yes, it is. And it's a way like ancient Belgian monks would make their beer, right? Like and you hear about back in the day, when people were making beer or making bread they had like a 'magic spoon' that they would stir it with, not knowing that the spoon was like, in fact, what carried the yeast growth from one batch to the next.

Margaret  06:44

Oh, that's cool!

James  06:46

Yeah. Yeah, it's fun, like a wooden spoon soaking in that yeasty mixture. So yeah, it's basically, your only ingredients for sourdough bread are salt, water, and flour.

Margaret  06:59

And so, and also a sourdough starter? But I guess you're saying that you don't start with that.

James  07:04

Well, yeah. The only things that you have to purchase or obtain, I guess. Yeah. So you need to get the sourdough starter, which we can get into, like, how do you encourage this bacteria to come and live with you. But you need to obtain it. And then, if you don't make it a favorable atmosphere for them to live, they will just die, right? So you have to keep them alive. And then once you've got those, then you can keep them in your fridge and feed them every week or two. And you can feed them less than that, actually. And yeah, then you've got everything you need, really. You want a big Dutch oven as well. That makes it a lot easier. But yeah, it's you could...

Margaret  07:41

Which is a big iron cooking pot with a lid.

James  07:44

Exactly. Like a casserole with a lid. Yeah. It's got to have a lid, but you can get those so cheaply now. Like I think I have a large one that is like 35 bucks a Target if you live near a target. I also kind of like to go to thrift stores and buy stuff like that. If I'm out and about I have a special one that I got that I use in like fires and cooking outside.

Margaret  08:08

So, why do people make sourdough bread instead of...what is regular [bread]? Because regular bread has yeast in it too, right?

James  08:14

Yeah, so it uses...what's the process called...there's a process through which it ferments more rapidly. It's like hyphenated. It's like two names, which...So like my bread--I'm making a batch of bread now, actually--and I started feeding the sourdough [starter] yesterday around around noon, and I build up my starter by adding flour and then I add that to my bulk ferment and then that bulk ferments and it will probably go in the oven tonight.

Margaret  08:14

Bog ferment? [Misunderstanding how James says "Bulk"]

James  08:33

Bulk. [Emphasizing the word.]

Margaret  08:38

Bulk. Sorry.

James  08:40

Yeah, like when you're bulking, you know? Yeah, so that...like it'll be the yeast, and the water, and the flour will be in contact for like 24 hours, right? So it's a much slower fermentation. And some people find this more digestively beneficial to them. Chorelywood process is what it's called when you speed ferment the bread. So, if you get your cheap bed, like Bimbo bread or whatever, and you sort of like...

Margaret  09:07

Bimbo bread?

James  09:08

Yeah, you don't have Bimbo bread?

Margaret  09:10

No, what's  Bimbo bread?

James  09:12

You're from the east coast aren't you. Pan Bimbo? It's a type of bread. It's a little bear thing. I think maybe it's Mexican in origin and it's more in Latino communities or Latinx communities. But yeah. That...if you get your crappy bread.. See I don't know the American brands because I don't buy them, but Bimbo won. It just this sticks out. It sticks out in my mind.

Margaret  09:36

Okay, the cliche crappy bread that I don't know anyone who eats is Wonder Bread.

James  09:40

Yeah, Wonder Bread. Yeah. They sponsored a cycling team once. It was was very funny.

Margaret  09:46

That's funny.

James  09:47

Yeah, it's probably...That kind of bread is great to eat when you're like doing intense exercise because it just...[incomprehensibleretort]

Margaret  09:48

I guess okay...Yeah, it just becomes sugar right away.

James  09:47

When I was racing in France, we had these things called quioche de posh, which is like pocket brioche, like the shittiest tier of brioche imaginable.

Margaret  09:48

I don't know what brioche is.

James  09:48

Okay, brioche like an enriched bread...ah, pretending it's a like anarchist's poor [undecipherable], which like I'm not judging anyone, but it's a like enriched bread. It's a milk bread. Like a sweet bread.

Margaret  10:09

Okay, I can't imagine this object.

James  10:22

it's just like this big, which is very useful in an audio medium. Yeah, I want to say it's the size of like half a cell phone or mobile phone and...Or a pocket knife, a  pocket knife is a good analogy. It's about as big as a pocket knife. And then it's like injection filled with Nutella. It takes like to chews and it just it just goes to a goo.

Margaret  10:51

Oh, that sounds really nice actually.

James  10:52

Yeah, it's great. You need that while you're riding over mountain France or whatever. So like, cheap bread kind of does that, right? Or like sort of mass produce bread very quickly revert to this kind of pasty thing. Whereas, sourdough bread has a much better structure. And at least like I found it to be it doesn't cause any digestion issues for me.  Because it ferments for longer, maybe it breaks down some that stuff a bit more easily. Some people will tell you it's more nutritious. I think that largely depends on the flour use and the ingredients you put in it. You can put other stuff in it like fruit or nuts, right. But, I like it because it's a lot more like...I can't imagine in any like...if you're looking at living more sustainably living more independently from capitalism, like, it's possible that you could grow your own grains and grind your own grains. People have done that for a while. Water would be an issue where I live in Southern California. But you know, if you have access...if you don't have access to water you're fucked anyway.

Margaret  11:55

Yeah, you have bigger problems than lack of bread.

James  11:58

Yeah. So, it's very sustainable in that sense, right. And I think it just tastes better. And I like making my own stuff like. I have all kinds of things that are...Literally before we spoke, I found a knife on the road, and I was regrinding so I can use it. You know, I like to grow stuff. I like to make stuff. So, it appeals to that side of me too. Yeah.

Margaret  12:19

Well, that's good too. Because I feel like there's often this weird gender division within DIY.

James  12:25

Yeah, it's strange.

Margaret  12:27

Yeah. Like grinding your own knife is allowed to one class of people. But, then gardening is allowed to a different one. You know? That's it.

James  12:36

Yeah. I think that's kind of bullshit. Like, you had a tweet today about how like trans ladies are becoming associated with firearms ownership now. Yeah, which I think it's great. Maybe cis men could be associated with doing some domestic labor as well.

Margaret  12:50

That would be...you know, the world would work a little better if people were like, "Oh, I don't know. He's just gonna go into the kitchen and do all the dishes." It's like, not even...It's like, I'd make sure I do that before he comes over. Because otherwise he's going to spend the whole party doing the dishes.

James  13:03

Yeah, ‘causehe's naturally inclined. Yeah.

Margaret  13:07

It's the upper body strength. It really helps get into the....

James  13:10

Yeah. The broad pecs really help get into the lasagna dish. Yeah, they were just made that way. Why are the hands so big? So they can cover a whole dinner plate.

Margaret  13:21

Exactly.

James  13:22

Yeah. You can't argue with science.

Margaret  13:27

Okay, so let's say I want to make sourdough, which I do. And I don't know anything about it. Which I don't. How do I make sourdough? I get flour.

James  13:39

Yeah.

Margaret  13:39

I get water. Did you say sugar? Did I make that up?

James  13:42

No, no, you don't need sugar.

Margaret  13:44

Salt?

James  13:44

Yeah, you do need a bit of salt. So, let's say you're about starting.

Margaret  13:50

Oh, and dutch oven.

James  13:52

Yeah, yeah. You're one of the 500 people who texted me this in like March 20th, 2020. It caused me to have a "copy-paste-er" on my phone. So what you would do is you would go out...and I'd say like, if you have all the flours...like say you have a good Co-op or nice supermarket available to you. I would suggest buying to start off with, some rye flour, whole grain rye flour, some bread flour. King Arthur is a good brand. Bob's Red Mill is a good brand. Some supermarkets have their own bread flour. It's just gonna have a little more protein, which is a little more gluten, which will give the bread better structure. And I like to have some all purpose flour as well because it's cheaper. So, like for when I'm just feeding my starter and I'm gonna dump it. If I'm gonna dump it I don't need it to be anything fancy, right? But rye flour is great. Yeasts love rye flour. So, what I start out with is like a jar, a glass jar, preferably you don't want a plastic one.

Margaret  14:48

Okay, like a mason jar.

James  14:50

Yeah. So a mason jar is great. And you want to be able to....flies, like all the little buggy insects love a sourdough starter. Like, I'll use it to catch them when they're becoming a problem that. But, you don't want them in it. So, you're want to be able to put like a little cheese cloth or something over the top of it. Okay, so mason jar is great, because you can use that sealing ring.

Margaret  15:11

Yeah, without anything in the middle. Yeah.

James  15:14

Yeah. But you do want to let it breathe. You don't want to close the lid, because then you'll get anaerobic fermentation. So, we're going to express everything that we do in terms of percentages of the weight of the flour. So, we're going to start out with 100% hydration. So that means equal amounts of water and flour. And sometimes I read that you shouldn't use tap water, but I think those people are just kind of getting a bit too namby pamby about things. Like it's fine. It's always been fine for me. If you want to use bottled water, if you have a well, more power to you, but I've used tap water and like our tap water is dogshit in San Diego, and it's been fine.

Margaret  15:52

Well, I have a well, so....although, I soften the water. So I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

James  15:58

Probably better. Ours very hard. It's certainly better a for your other domestic appliances.

Margaret  16:02

Yeah, that's why. Most complicated plumbing job I've set up.

James  16:08

Yeah, and it's worth it, though. If you live in a hard water area, and you want an espresso machine, you can normally find one that people think is broken and if you decalcify it it's normally fine. That's a little pro tip. Used to want to have no money. I'd buy them yard sales and fix them and sell them on espresso boards.

Margaret  16:28

You've had a lot of jobs.

James  16:30

Yeah, a great side hustle. Yeah, didn't have a lot of money so had to have a lot of jobs. So yeah, what we're going to start out doing is we're going to do 100% hydration, right?

Margaret  16:40

Okay, 1:1 water and flour.

James  16:42

Yes, one to one water and flour. So let's say we're going to do 100 grams of each. It's...you can work in American Standards units, if you really must, but it's so much easier to do percentages, etc, in grams. So, I would just just start there. And then after a day, we're going to dump half of that, and feed it again. Now the stuff that you dump, you can either use to start another starter and give that to a friend or have a backup starter. Or I like to keep it and there are recipes for like making crackers out of it and that kind of thing. And you can do other stuff with it.

Margaret  17:14

Wait. So I'm just putting...I'm putting some some flour and some water in a jar with some cheese cloth over it, leaving it, and then throwing half of it out.

James  17:23

And then feeding it again.

Margaret  17:25

By adding more of everything?

James  17:27

More of the flour and the water. So another 100 grams flour, 100 grams of water, and then you're going to dump half and feed again the next day. And the reason you're doing that is to get rid of some of the like metabolites and some of the flour that's been digested. And, you want to keep giving it fresh food and that will encourage the yeast to grow. And so once that starts to fizz and bubble, and you'll kind of see little bubbles and you'll...first it'll smell pretty bad, and then after four or five days normally it starts to smell pretty good. It's kind of got a sweet kind of...people say a green apple smells sometimes.

Margaret  18:01

This just seems like magic. You're not adding anything but flour and water to this jar and it's bubbling.

James  18:07

Yes, it is. I think...I forget...One of the places that used to say like that yeast was proof of God or something that like....Belgian monks used to make beer this way, right? And they convinced themselves it was either their magic spoon or like God's benevolent love. It's not.

Margaret  18:22

I mean, both of those things seem just as realistic as the little tiny things in the air that you can't see are eating the food.

James  18:33

Yes, yeah, yeah. invisible flour eaters. Another way to do it is if you can get nonsulfated dried fruits...so you can...You know when you get the dried apricot and they're brown orange and they taste better? Those are unsulfated. You can also leave those in a jar. Just close the jar. Leave them in a jar with water and close the jar and after a few days it will start fizzing.

Margaret  18:55

Close the jar like cheese cloth? Or like 'close it' close it?

James  18:59

Lid it. Lid on. Like screw on the lid. And then after a few days, you'll see that water start fizzing. And that's what's happening there. That's the yeast coming off the skin of the fruit. And then you can use that water to make your starter, right. So mix that with flour and then feed it just like you would before. You can kind of combine these two processes, right. You can do the fruit one first and then do that 100% feed it up. And then after a while that starch is going to start bubbling. This is why you want to use a clear glass jar because you'll see it growing, right. You'll see the bubbles all the way up and you'll see that like oh yeah, this is this is fermenting now. That's what's happening. You can even if you want to you can like Sharpie on the side of the jar, you know, when you feed it and then see if it goes up.  And the speed at which it will double in size depends on the temperature where you live, right, and the temperature of the starter itself. So, your that's what you're looking for. You're looking for it to double in size about every eight hours. And that's when you know you've got a good fast smoothing starter.

Margaret  20:02

Okay, this totally real thing that happens. I know you're explaining this to me, but in my head this is not...when I go try this later nothing's gonna happen that's how I feel.

James  20:11

It will blow your mind. It is it's so cool

Margaret  20:15

I'm gonna come back and tell you that I believe in a Belgian God.

James  20:19

Yeah, you just become a monk in like West Flanders. Yeah, yeah.

Margaret  20:25

Okay. Is this the same yeast that is making that...Is this also alcohol?

James  20:33

Yes, it's the same. What? Lactobacillus? Fuck, I used to know what they were called in Latin but I don't anymore, but yes Saccharomyces, I think.

Margaret  20:43

Magic sky yeast.

James  20:44

Yeah, magic sky yeast. Yes, it is. Yeah, it's the same stuff. Brewers yeast, right when you buy it...So it's just...

Margaret  20:54

When I buy it it I can see it. But in the air is just exists?

James  20:59

Yeah, it's just floating around.

Margaret  21:02

All right.

James  21:04

Okay, so the yeast have come to live with you in this jar, right? And they are thriving, and you're feeding them. So now we want to take that to where we can bake from it. So, what we do is we take from us starter and we grab half of it, right? So half of...

Margaret  21:19

Half a mason jar?

James  21:20

Whatever...400 grams. Yeah, it would be the whole mason jar. But we let's say because we're dumping half and feeding every day, right? So we have that amount that we have, we're gonna split it in half.

Margaret  21:31

How many days before it's ready.

James  21:34

It kind of depends on the temperature. It will ferment faster in a high temperature. It depends on the yeasts that are available in your area, right. So, if I gave you a sourdough starter today and you took it to where you live, right. I sent it to you in the mail, and you started feeding it, it will become different over time because of the yeast in your area as opposed my area.

Margaret  21:52

But, I don't need to start from one that you sent to me.

James  21:55

No, you can start from from one that you made yourself. you captured yourself. Right? So, that will probably take five or six days, maybe maybe a week. Some people like to feed it was fruit juice instead of water? I don't know if that helps. Some people put apple peels in the water because there's yeast on the skin. Right. So, let's say you spend the better part of a week...and it's very minimal effort, right, it's about five minutes of your day. And you do that, and you start to see it bubbling up, right, you start seeing in the jar it's bubbling up, okay. Now you could. So you're going to take half of that, dump it in a bowl, and you're going to add 100 grams of flour and 80 grams of water, right? So you're at 80% hydration now. And then the other half that's still in the mason jar, you're going to feed that as you normally would, right, 100, 100.

Margaret  22:46

Just to keep it going?

James  22:47

To keep it going. Yeah. And then you'll let that sit...I don't know, sometimes I let it sit for four hours. You don't want to let it sit for the full eight hours, because then it would have consumed all the food and it will want feeding again. So let it sit for an hour or two and then I seal it in the mason jar or with a jam jar and I pop that in the fridge. So, that slows down the fermentation. So that now...that doesn't need that....That's what we call your storage starter. And that doesn't need feeding for about a week or two. So basically, if you feed it every time you bake you're going to be okay. Okay, so now we've got this other bowl, right, which has got 100 grams of flour and 80 grams of water in your starter. We're going to mix that up, leave it for eight hours. And at this point, we can transition from using the rye flour to using our all purpose flour.

Margaret  23:33

Okay, so the rye flour is just to make the starter? We're not making rye bread.

James  23:38

No, well, you can, or if your stater ever gets a bit sluggish, and it's not really fermenting the rye flour will spruce...because rye flour is lower protein, right, lower gluten, it doesn't make as good of bread because gluten is what gives the bread the structure. But the protein is not really digested by the yeast, right? That's why it remains in the bread. So, if we're giving it a flour which is lower protein, there's more of the other stuff that yeast want, and that's where they like the rye flour. But that's also why you can't make your whole bread out of rye flour, or it won't be too good if you do. So. Yeah, at this point, once we've captured our starter, I would start transitioning to the AP for the two feedings that we're going to do to build up...

Margaret  24:21

AP is all purpose?

James  24:22

All purpose. Yeah, sorry, I'm used to using baker slang. It's how you can tell I'm like down with the kids. So you've moved to your like--what we're doing now is called building a levain. It's a French word. And we're going to do two feedings of that, right? So, we're going to do eight hours spaced apart more or less. We're going to do 100 grams of water, 80 grams all purpose...Sorry, 100 grams of all purpose flour, 80 grams of water. And again, what we're looking for is bubbling up, right. So, you can also do this in glass if you want and you're looking for it to double in size and then you feed it again. But like, it doesn't have to exactly double in size, right? Like I don't really like measure shit. I do weigh stuff, but other than that I kind of...so it's March here. It's pretty cold for San Diego. Like, it'll be in the 40s at night and the 50s in a day. And so it takes a lot longer for my bread to bake now. In the summer, it's just like whipping ass. Like the whole thing is done in like, you know, from getting out the fridge to being done in less than 12 hours. But, it's double that in the winter.

Margaret  25:31

Is this making dough?

James  25:33

What we're now doing is making a large kind of yeast inoculated...a large yeast culture that we're about to put into the dough. So, the reason we're using AP here is because the yeast will consume more of it, right? And it's...So, then we do that twice, right, we do that feeding twice, which is...so 80% hydration feeding twice. Then, we're going to make the dough itself. I've tried to like refine my process to make it as low stress as possible. And it makes really good bread and it takes not very much time. So, I like to bake with 1500 grams of flour, right? So that's...500 grams of flour is is a good sized loaf, right?

Margaret  26:16

So you make three loaves at a time? Okay,

James  26:19

Yeah, I make three loaves. I have tried to make one giant choad loaf, but it just sort of...What happens is it will blow the top off your Dutch oven. You'll get like a mushroom. What I do is, I measure up my water first. And if it's cold, I'll use hot water, and if it's hot, I use room temperature water, right. So, right now I run the hot tap a little bit. And then I'm doing the same thing I'm doing 80% hydration, right. So for that, because I'm doing 1500 grams of flour. I want 1200 grams of water.

Margaret  26:46

It's so interesting because I usually think of things not in terms of...I don't usually think...I'm not much of a baker, but I don't think of things in terms of the weight of them. I think in terms of the volume of them

James  26:55

Weight is so much preferable to volume, like

Margaret  26:58

Yeah, no, I believe you. I'm not much of a baker.

James  27:02

Yeah, people say that cooking is an art and baking in science. But, I think sourdough was like a vibe...Like once you...once you get it down and you're vibing on the same level as your sourdough starter...

Margaret  27:14

Okay, because the other cliche there is, is if you can...if you can bake a cake, you can make a bomb. It's the other cliche.

James  27:24

I would not trust this method for bomb making.

Margaret  27:27

Yeah, don't vibe with that.

James  27:28

Yeah, I'm reminded of...my colleague Robert Evans and I were doing an interview with some some folks who are part of the resistance in Myanmar. They will bomb makers, and one of them's like, "Yeah, man, unfortunately, my friend lost his hand." And we're all sitting around and I know what's coming next, and Robert knows what's coming next, and the guy knows he's gonna have to say it next, and he was like, "We really shouldn't have been smoking, dude."

Margaret  27:56

<Both laughing> I hate to laugh at this person whose doing this incredibly brave and dangerous thing, but...

James  28:01

Yeah, they're very brave people. They thought it was hilarious too. Like everyone...I think you have to laugh or you'll cry sometimes. So yeah, you...you're now doing.

Margaret  28:11

But, you can smoke while doing this...I mean, don't smoke.

James  28:13

Yeah, I just try and avoid it. So what you're doing now is your...you've got your 1200 grams of water. You're going to put your starter that you've made, your levain, into that and the swirl it as best you can, right? There is a thing called a dough whisk, which you can get, which it's like two concentric circles on the end of a stick or just a made of wire. Right? It's a special whisk. You should look it up. But, you can use that...I use a Kitchen aid for all of this. If you've got access...

Margaret  28:43

Like an automatic?

James  28:45

Yeah, with a dough hook with it.

Margaret  28:47

Oh, that I know. I've seen that. Yeah, I was in a commercial kitchen for a little while. Yeah.

James  28:52

Yeah, sometimes you can get very cheap ones when commercial kitchens closed down. Or, like, again, yard sales are great for this kind of thing. So, you're mixing that together, right. You mix the starter into the water and then you add the flour. That way, you don't get clumps of flour on the bottom of your bowl. I found, cause if you do water into flour, you can get clumps of flour. And then you will have like bits where you bite into your bread and it's just like flour pockets, which isn't desirable,

Margaret  29:18

That seems like what I would do by accident. Yeah. I mean,  I manage to do it like baking soda pockets when I do it.

James  29:26

That is ferocious. That will really...

Margaret  29:28

Yeah, no, you have to throw all the cookies away or whatever it was. I think it was muffins. Anyway,

James  29:37

When I was bike racing, we used to use baking soda as a buffer for...we thought it would buffer lactate. It  doesn't really. Maybe...I think it does to some degree. If you get the dosage wrong on that you will be moving quickly but only towards the toilet. It is a devastating...fascinating part of my athletic career. And then there are other dudes who were just doping out the wazoo and then there's me taking baking soda. So yeah, we're mixing that together, right. And then we're going to mix all that. So, the way we like to mix is that we'll get our hands wet and we're going to do what are called like stretch and folds. And then we're going to...we're going to reach the bottom of the bowl, pull it up, stretch it, drop it down, go around, go up, stretch it, and drop it down. That's not so important in the first mix. In the first mix you just need to combine everything. But, if we always use that same technique then we only have to learn one technique. So, we're going to leave that for about 45 minutes. Then we're going to add the salt. So I do 5%, I think it's 5%...or is it 1%? I do 30 grams...

Margaret  30:39

That's a big difference.

James  30:39

Yeah, it is. 30 grams of salt for 1500 grams of flour. So you math people can work that out. I'm not at numbers guy. So, that's how much I do. That's how much I would suggest you do. If you have starters having trouble, if it's a bit sluggish, you can do a little bit less. But you do need some. It doesn't work without the salt. And so we're adding that salt after about 45 minutes. When we add that salt, what we do is we do to stretch and fold again, right? So we're coming underneath...

Margaret  31:11

2%.

James  31:11

2%. There we go.

Margaret  31:12

30 grams out of 1500?

James  31:14

Yeah, okay. There we go, 2%. So, shoot for around 2%. And we're gonna do that stretch and fold again. I would suggest people look up "stretch and fold" because it's not easy to describe on audio. If you have a Kitchen aid, you're just gonna pulse it once or twice like buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz and you're good. If you have big salt. That's a technical term then...

Margaret  31:37

Sea salt?

James  31:38

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's what the marketing people want you to call it. Big salt. So yeah, if you hold back a little bit of the water and then put the salt in that water, that makes it easy. You dissolve it and then pour it in. And that just makes it easier to spread it around the whole loaf, you see what I mean? So you don't get salt crystals. Okay, so now, we're going to do about three stretch and folds over the course of the entire ferment. So what I look for when I'm fermenting it is like it domes out over the top of the kitchen aid. And, that's when I know it's done. So, that could take anywhere from three hours to eight hours depending on the temperature, right? Over that time, I want to do three stretch and folds. What I suggest to people starting out is stretch and fold it every 40 minutes for for a total of three, right. So you, before your first 40 minutes, add the salt. Stretch and fold. Leave it for 40 minutes. Stretch and fold. Leave it for 40 minutes. Stretch and fold. And then wait till it...just wait till it looks good and puffy. Like you'll sort of...again you could wait till it sort of doubles in size, but you'll sort of know once it's getting puffy. And some of this will take time, right? Like your first bake might not be perfect but you'll soon get a sense of...

Margaret  32:52

Mine's not going to be perfect at all. No, it's gonna be absolute shit...I'm expecting that it's going to like somehow either not grow at all, and I'll be like, what the fuck happened. Or, it'll like take over my kitchen, and it tell me to feed it or it'll kill my children.

James  33:07

I have had some where it's like, if you forget about it and go on a bike ride or something like it is expanded out of the kitchen aid into my toaster and shit like...this stuff is all messy.

Margaret  33:19

So it'll keep going?

James  33:21

Oh, yeah, it will. After a while it sort of...after a while it will die back on itself. But you don't want it to be like completely blown out because you still need it to ferment a little bit in your next stage, which is your shaping. So you then you've done three stretch and folds, right, you dump that out. And here's where it really helps to have a--it's called a bench scraper. It's like a it looks just like a piece of very thin steel with a handle on top and use it to cut the bread. So.

Margaret  33:46

Yeah, I've seen those.

James  33:47

Yeah, you've seen them in commercial kitchens, probably. I'm making three loaves. So, I'm going to flour the surface, the work surface, right, and gonna use AP flour because it's cheaper. Dump it out. I'm going to cut that into three. And then I'm going to shape it. And the way we shape it is like we kind of stretch it in all the directions, right? So it's nice and stretched. And that's...what we're doing with the stretch and folds, by the way, is developing the gluten, right? You'll see these strands of gluten when you're stretching it. That's what you want to do. You want to stretch those strands out and then fold them back in. You don't want to stretch them so far that you break them, right. So, if it starts breaking you've gone too far. So, you just gently stretching it. Same thing here. We're gently stretching it. If you have a granite counter top, you're very fortunate.

Margaret  34:30

Yeah, I don't have a granite. Yeah, it's Formica or something.

James  34:33

Yeah, exactly. Most of us do. Sometimes people will have like a little granite stone or like, for whatever reason, when I moved into my place was a giant piece of granite...I think they'd been intending on doing the granite counter top and dropped it. That shit is not easy to move. But with the help of some friends I've moved mine.

Margaret  34:51

I have a giant sheet of slate.

James  34:53

Oh, that would be great. Yeah, you want to just to be nice and cold. So I think slate would be great.

Margaret  34:57

Yeah, there was a there was a pool table in the basement. And I thought to myself, I'm gonna destroy this pool table and take it out. And then I learned by hitting the pool table with a two handed axe that pool tables are not made of wood.

James  35:12

No, no. So now you have half a pool table in your basement?

Margaret  35:16

I well. I mean, I eventually got it out. But, I have two large pieces of slate instead of what I wish I had, which was one large piece of slate.

James  35:23

Yeah, that would be more handy. Nice. Yeah. So, you could use your slate. You can of course, use a wooden counter top or whatever you have. And so you're gonna cut it into three, right, you're gonna stretch it out and you're going to fold the edges into the middle, right? Now, we've got this thing that looks kind of like a bun. We're going to flip that over. And then if we take our two hands, and we reach some out in front of us with our palms facing us and we overlap our fingers. Yeah, so you can imagine that. We're going to take that bundle of bread and just pull it towards us, tucking our fingers underneath. And it'll sort of....it sort of makes itself into a sphere if you do that. And then you turn it by 45 degrees and do it again. And it'll sort of...it developed like a skin, like a balloon on the outside when you're doing this. It's really cool. It's super fun when you're doing it. Like, it's one of the most satisfying things you can do. And then yeah, like, you get that you do it from three or four angles, right? So you turn, pull, turn, pull, turn, pull. And now it's like a nice tight ball. You can give it a little slap and it'll jiggle.

Margaret  36:26

Good to know.

James  36:28

That's a good sort of soundbite for anyone ever wanting to discredit me on the internet. Great. I look forward to hearing that one come back at me.

Margaret  36:37

It's okay, I heard you on It Could Happen Here, recently. An entire episode about cum.

James  36:43

Yeah, I really have nowhere to go from there but up. So, you want to do that with all your three loaves, right. And then leave them for half an hour and come back and do the do the pulling again. Right? And that's just going to reinforce that exterior. And then we're going to put them in what are called bannetons. And if it's your first time, but you don't want to buy a banner tone, then what you can do is take your mixing bowl and just line it with a dish cloth...or not a dish cloth,  a tea towel, right.? And sprinkle that tea towel with flour.

Margaret  37:13

And what's a tea towel?

James  37:15

What's a tea towel? Fucking hell.

Margaret  37:16

Versus a dishcloth?

James  37:18

Yeah, well, a tea towel is like a thin, a large thin towel that you use for doing your...if you're drying your dishes.

Margaret  37:24

Oh, okay. A dishrag.

James  37:28

Okay. That's British and American culture, right. Yeah.

Margaret  37:33

I mean, at least ours says what it is.

James  37:36

Yeah, true. Again, that is the difference between British and American culture. Yeah. So, use whatever you have available, just a thin piece cloth, right. You could use cheesecloth if you wanted to and just sprinkle it with with flour so that doesn't stick. If you have a banneton...a banneton is a wicker basket. So when...often when you see, you know, fancy sourdough bread it has dots or little lines on it from the wicker basket.

Margaret  38:03

Oh, interesting. Okay.

James  38:05

So, you take your banneton and you flower it again, right?

Margaret  38:08

Do we have a different word for that? I've never heard that word before.

James  38:11

No, I think the American word is banneton.

Margaret  38:14

I assume it's a like bread fucker or something.

James  38:15

Yeah, fuckin' bread bowl, isn't it?

Margaret  38:21

Yeah. <both laughing>

James  38:26

I'm sure it's called like a fucking bald eagle freedom bowl.

Margaret  38:28

Yeah, yeah, totally.

James  38:30

Yeah. Take your freedom dish and you want to...this is where we use a bench scraper again. We scrape underneath the bread, and dump it in so the seam side is up. Do you see what I mean? So, the bottom...what was on the bottom is now on the top. And we're going to then leave those for about two hours, right. And they'll puff up again. About an hour into two hours. You want to start heating up oven.

Margaret  38:53

This is so involved. I'm excited to try this.

James  38:59

So, this sounds super involved. If you work from home, your hands on time for this whole thing is like 20 minutes. Like it's, it's less...

Margaret  39:06

It sounds like we're summoning Baphomet or something.

James  39:09

You chant your incantation, you draw three anti clockwise circles.

Margaret  39:14

Use the magic spoon.

James  39:16

Yeah, you stand at the tip of the pentagram.

Margaret  39:20

Okay, so you leave for two hours.

James  39:22

Yeah. And we're gonna heat up our oven about an hour in, right. So, in our oven we want to have our Dutch oven, our cast iron pan. It just...

Margaret  39:32

Can it take all three loaves? Do you need a huge one?

James  39:34

I have one that I think is designed for cooking fish. It's long and about the with of a bread loaf and I put two in there. And one normal size like large cast iron will take one. What I've done to facilitate it being easier is, you know the rack you have on your oven?

Margaret  39:54

Yeah.

James  39:55

So, I took that, I measured it, and then I cut a quarter inch piece of steel that it's that same size.

Margaret  40:02

I'm not welding shit in my oven.

James  40:05

You don't have to weld it.

Margaret  40:06

All right.

James  40:07

You just replace that rack with the steel.

Margaret  40:10

Oh, okay. Okay.

James  40:11

And it's giving it more...because ovens, like domestic ovens--especially if you rent you know, it's often not very expensive appliances--they'll cycle up and down quite a lot. But having a lot of thermal mass from a giant sheet of steel will stay hot and keep it hot.

Margaret  40:25

Oh interesting

James  40:25

And now, what you're looking for when you put that bread in your Dutch oven is something called oven spring, which is when it hits that hot dutch oven it goes, "Psssh," and that's gonna give you a decent amount of your rise, right? It's highly desirable to have like nice big bubbles in your bread. So, your next step, right, your two hours have passed. Your oven's hot. Your Dutch oven is in there and it's hot. You gonna turn the bread out of the banneton onto a piece of parchment paper. You could go straight into the Dutch oven, but like you will fucking...like I wear the scars from doing that.

Margaret  40:37

Alright.

James  40:41

So, I would suggest avoiding it.

Margaret  41:03

So, that's the equivalent of smoking while you do it.

James  41:06

Yeah. I do like to live on the edge when it comes to baking. So, you turn it onto your parchment paper and then you slice the top of it. It just gives it a place to expand. I do a little little anarchist A. It could be fun, or you can just do whatever you want. Some people do a little corn leaf. It's fun to do it with a razor blade. There's this thing called a lame, which is a razor blade on a stick. You can just use a razor blade, like a safety razor. And so we're turning it out, right. So now the seam side is down again. Because you remember you put it in the seam side up, so now the seam side is down. We're doing a slice. And then we're popping it into the Dutch oven with the lid on. 20 minutes with the lid on. Between 11 and 15 minutes with the lid off. You can probe it. I think the temperature you're looking for inside is is 190 [Fahrenheit]. You should verify that but...

Margaret  41:58

Or just convert it to normal people numbers.

James  42:01

Yeah. So, you're doing the oven at 500 right when you put it on?

Margaret  42:05

Oh, you are talking about Fahrenheit?

James  42:07

Yeah, I'm talking about Fahrenheit.

Margaret  42:08

Oh, okay.

James  42:10

Yeah, check the internal temps. I'd never do that. I haven't done it for years, but you want the oven to be ripping hot and then you're doing...again some people turn it down to 450 for when the lid is off. I don't.

Margaret  42:21

Cowards.

James  42:22

Yeah, cause they are scared. But, if you're a real alpha, just leave it at 500 Like me. And so, 20 minutes with the lid on, 10 to 15 with the lid off till you see nicely...and you do want like a nice dark brown exterior, right? Okay, you pop it out. Right? You're just gonna grab the corner set parchment paper, so you don't cremate your hands? Use oven gloves to handle the fucking 500 degree cast iron pot, obviously. Like yeah, you will be like physically disabled if you do that. Like you will lose the use of your hands. So pull that out. And then what...you don't want the bread to dry on that parchment paper sheet. So, I just, with my gloves on, right, flip it over, take the parchment paper sheet out, use that parchment paper sheet again for the next loaf. And I dry it on a rack or something till the air get to the base of it so you don't get like a thick bottom on it.

Margaret  43:15

Yeah, okay. I was wondering about that with some other baking. I think was brownies or something, where I was like, I need to get a rack in order to dry...anyway. Okay. Or cool down things.

James  43:24

Well, I actually use this, you know...

Margaret  43:26

Or cake. I was making cake. It didn't come out. I'm not good at it. Anyway.

James  43:30

You'll thrive with this, Margaret. I'm confident. So, you've got your...you know, the things that you have on your on your hob? Well, you don't call it a hob, do you in America? When you're heating up a pan?

James  43:42

No, no, no. Like the get the gas. The top?

Margaret  43:42

Oven.

Margaret  43:46

Oh, the burner.

James  43:47

Burner. That's it? Yeah. Okay, again.

Margaret  43:50

Hob is kind of a nice word. I like that.

James  43:51

Yeah.

Margaret  43:52

Hob. Hobgoblins. Do they relate to this? Anyway, so...

James  43:55

That's where they live. Yeah, that's their home.

Margaret  43:57

Okay. Wait, actually are they like weird oven? Are they like domestic?

James  44:01

I don't know. Yeah. A hobnob is a type of biscuit.

Margaret  44:06

Wait, what? Really?

James  44:07

Yeah. Hobnob? You know...

Margaret  44:08

I thought that was when you hang out with people to try and impress them.

James  44:11

It's also that. I didn't know which one came first. Because maybe if you're hanging out you have biscuits.

Margaret  44:17

Which means cookies to you.

James  44:19

Yeah.

Margaret  44:19

I know I am endlessly entertained by the differences between American and British English. I don't know if the audience is, but I am forever entertained.

James  44:26

They've stopped listening by now.

Margaret  44:28

Exactly.

James  44:31

I've seen It Could Happen Here subreddit. I think they love it. So, you put it on your hob if you want because that lets the air circulate underneath. You see what I mean. The cost free option.

Margaret  44:41

Yeah, not with electric stuff.

James  44:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do have to have a [Undecipherable joke about gas stove legislation.]

Margaret  44:51

Yeah.

James  44:52

Yeah. Big Government. Yeah, yeah. I'm living free over here.

Margaret  44:57

And so yeah.

James  45:01

If it's the stove that gets me, I will be shocked.

Margaret  45:06

Yeah, fair enough.

James  45:08

I got in the back of an arms dealers van to go for dinner last year so I'll take my risk with the stove.

Margaret  45:14

Fair enough.

James  45:16

So yeah, put it wherever air can circulate, right. Next loaf, same deal. Leave it for an hour. You will struggle with temptation to not eat it. Yeah.

Margaret  45:26

I will. I will. If I especially if I have three in front of me.

James  45:30

Yeah, well, what I do is I take a small portion of one of them and I make a like a micro bread. Some might call it a bread roll. I let myself eat that while the others are cooling. So, leave them for about an hour because they will...they'll become much more...they need to dry out a bit and they do that with the air circulation. If you cut them right away they won't...the first few slices will be good. But over the lifetime of the loaf it will be less good. Or fuck it, you've got three so if you really want to eat one straightaway then you know you do.

Margaret  45:59

I'm just gonna cool it on a...I'm going to get a windowsill outside of the window and cool it out there so I can find a hobo.

James  46:06

Yeah, or a bear.

Margaret  46:08

Oh, yeah, either way. Yeah. Either way. I got a new friend. Have a beer with them.

James  46:13

Yeah. Yeah, why not? Bears love beer. Anything with yeast is a big interest of theirs.  So then then you have bread. And then you can sort of...you can make mix it up, right. You could do 1000 grams of bread flour and 500 grams of whole wheat flour. You can do 1000 grams of bread flour, 200 grams of rye flour, 300 grams, a whole wheat flour. You can sort of mix around. You want to kind of keep the bulk of it to be that like high quality bread flour like King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill or one that says by flour on the box. And yeah, then you then you're away really. And then you can start fucking around with with different shapes, different recipes. You can use your sourdough starter to make other things.

Margaret  47:01

Is there like a logical lifespan of the sourdough starter that you've made that you'd keep in your fridge? Or do you just every couple of weeks have to feed it and then you throw out chunks of it when it gets too much big?

James  47:11

I mean, I've never really been into throwing it out because I just hate the idea of throwing away food. So like, I'll take the discard and make pancakes. Or roll it out with...add some olive oil and salt, roll it out, and make crackers or whatever. But mine has been going for a solid like 10-15 years. And I will like...I'll travel for work a lot. And I'll be away for six-eight weeks, months even. And when you get back so it will have a little kind of weird...they'll start going darker on the top. You just scoop that off, feed it again, back in the game.

Margaret  47:43

I love how chaotic old fashioned methods of cooking are. Like, I love how things are like...it's not exactly like a food safety or exact science thing. It's a like...like, I just love that this whole idea comes from not starting from sterility, because I feel like in Western society we have this like conception where like all healthy good things start from this like blank slate.

James  48:11

Yeah.

Margaret  48:12

And I feel like fermentation, especially this weird, invisible yeast monsters, fermentation is like such a good counter to all that. I mean,  I'm not anti food safety, but I just mean like this like concept of like building from zero or whatever. But, I don't know.

James  48:30

Right. And there are things there that have provided for us for centuries and millennia, and like maybe we should embrace them instead of trying to kind of engineer our way out of them or replace them with a product which is like manufactured and marketed and sold and all those things. Like, you can make bread and not be productive to capitalism.

Margaret  48:36

It's like the difference between like...I'm not anti city. It's like building a city with the curves of where you are versus like the idea of being like, "We must level everything and build everything from the ground up." You know?

James  49:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like a sort of imposing our will on nature. Let nature guide us. It's...it is just kind of a vibe. Like it'll take...like, it might take longer to bake in your oven, or it might take longer to ferment because your house is cold or whatever. And that's fine. It's somewhat chaotic. But, you'll get it and once you get it, like, it's very easy. Especially, a lot more people work from home now so like, it's low effort. It's just like as long as you're around then it's pretty easy.

Margaret  49:33

How long does a loaf of sourdough stick around as food if you don't freeze it?

James  49:38

I work through them pretty fast.

Margaret  49:41

I mean, how long...how long before it goes bad?

James  49:44

Okay, that hasn't been an issue, traditionally, just for myself. But yeah. A week or two. You know, like...They don't go...So that's interesting, actually. When you get commercial bread because it has things that retard the staleness, it will be soft but moldy. Where as sourdough bread will be hard before before it goes moldy. So like...

Margaret  50:09

Which rules from a food safety point of view? Because then you just...

James  50:13

You know that it's on its way out, and you can make it to croutons or whatever at that point, french toast or whatever you like.

Margaret  50:20

Cut it up and put it into soup.

James  50:22

Yeah, yeah. There's all kinds of...throw it at someone.

Margaret  50:25

Bread pudding. I want to learn I make bread pudding cause it's so tasty.

James  50:28

Oh yeah, just put custard on bread. That's basically it.

Margaret  50:33

What's custard? <Both laughing>

James  50:37

That's a whole other podcast. We could be here for hours doing custards.

Margaret  50:44

Isn't custard the word that's like every British food is a custard?

James  50:48

Probably, I think a decent number. We like...as a country, we like wet food and custard is a part of that, along with like a gravy, and mint sauce, and all the other wet things that we've got on our food. Okay, warm, wet food. That's British cuisine. Yeah, custard is a desert wetness.

Margaret  51:07

I would make fun of British cuisine. But, I'm a white American. So, I have literally no ground to stand on because the only decent food comes from other cultures.

James  51:17

Yeah, to be fair, this is also true of us.

Margaret  51:20

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

James  51:22

Yeah, very little has not been purloined from our former imperial colonies, sadly.

Margaret  51:28

Okay, well, I'm still intimidated. But, I feel like I have a better sense of how to do it. And now if I like to go and look at instructions I'll feel a little bit less...just completely overwhelmed. So.

James  51:42

Yeah, try it. It's it. There's very little to lose.

Margaret  51:46

Yeah. All right. Yeah, I will lose some time. And I will get confused as to why it doesn't work. I have like a complete...I'm completely convinced that all food related art is like beyond me. Last year, I successfully grew food for the first time. But, I also failed at growing a large amount of food. However, I did successfully grow food for the first time after many attempts. So. So maybe, maybe this is the year that I can bake more than just brownies.

James  52:17

I will be just a text message away. Let's see.

Margaret  52:20

Alright. You're gonna be like in Myanmar like dealing with people. And I'm like, "Hold on. Wait, is it like...How do I know when the gluten is threaded right?" and there's just like explosions in the background.

James  52:34

Yeah. I mean, hopefully there won't be, I'll take my sourdough starter with me.

Margaret  52:37

Cool. All right. Well, is there any anything else you want to???

James  52:40

No, that's about it. I do another podcast. It's called It Could Happen Here. It's on the Cool Zone Media Network along with your other podcast, and people can find that. My Twitter is my name, James Stout. And you can find me, if I'm not currently banned, which has been sort of a sporadic thing recently because I like to tweet pictures of Mussolini, one specific picture of Mussolini if we're being honest.

Margaret  53:12

The upside down one, just in case anyone's curious. The one where he's dead.

James  53:16

Yeah, if you don't want to see a dead person. I only use it as a reply image. So, you'll probably be fine. Yeah, yeah. No, it's about all. Thanks for your help. I'm working on another book. But that one's a long way in the future. People can find my book, my first book, I guess, by going to a library and asking for it.

Margaret  53:35

Yep. Yeah. And it's about the Popular Olympics and the Spanish Civil War.

James  53:40

Yeah, I should say that. Yeah, it's about the Spanish Civil War. It's about the alternatives to the Berlin Olympics, and the people who came to Spain to take part in an Anti-Fascist Olympiad and stayed to kill fascists.

Margaret  53:51

And if you don't want to read, you can listen to James telling me about it on my other podcast, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. All right. Well, thanks so much. And I'm excited to talk to you in the future about all kinds of other stuff like. You keep threatening to make other podcasts about wool and sheep and stuff. So.

James  54:13

Oh, yeah. I'm always down. More livestock topics. Sheep. If anyone wants to talk sheep, it's @Jamestout on Twitter.

Margaret  54:21

Fuck yeah.

James  54:22

Yeah, send me a sheep photo.

Margaret  54:28

Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please make your own sourdough. And then brag to me about how you made sourdough while I've continued to fail. Or maybe I'll succeed. This isn't supposed to be about me as this part. So, you can also support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, rating, and reviewing and all that bullshit that feeds algorithms. And, you can support us on Patreon patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is the publisher of this podcast and a few other podcasts, including currently, the podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which comes out monthly, as well as the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is the podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And, we would like to shout out our some of our particular patrons. We'd like to shout out Paige, and Aly, and paparound, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, S.J., Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Cat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Micaiah, Hoss the dog, and Hans. We straight up couldn't do it without you and really appreciate it. I hope everyone does as well as they can with everything that's happening and I'll talk to you soon.