I’ve been really intrigued by the recent discussion of sourdough on some of the cooking and baking tribes, so this weekend I decided to try making a starter myself from scratch. Wow! What a fascinating process. It’s one of those things, like spinning yarn from sheep’s wool with a drop spindle, that’s so ancient and so basic to the advancement of early human civilization, that it makes you feel connected to your ancestors in a vibrantly immediate and sacred, spiritual way. Those are the sorts of experiences that give me goosebumps.

Following the directions in the “Amy’s Bread” book (I used to love to visit Amy’s Bread in the Chelsea Market when I lived in Manhattan’s West Village), I started with rye flour and spring water and let the thick mixture sit out on my kitchen counter. In less than 24 hours, I had an active, slightly sour tasting and smelling bowl of goop! My husband and son weren’t sure whether to be impressed that I pulled off such a feat, or worried that our kitchen had micro-organisms floating around that could cause such a bizarre (to them) process to happen spontaneously. I was thrilled!

I refreshed the starter with more rye flour and water. In less than twelve hours, the starter went gangbusters and quadrupled in size, overflowing the container and oozing across the counter like “the blob”.

Following the directions, I discarded all but 2/3 cup of the starter and refreshed again with more rye flour and water. After 12 hours, I was perplexed to find that the starter was not nearly as vigorous as before. Still, it was active, and certainly had a pronounced tangy, fruity flavor and a nice network of bubbles.

Next, I divided the rye starter into two batches. One was refreshed with regular white (wheat) flour and the other continued with rye flour, the idea being to make a white mother and a rye mother. These sat overnight and I found this morning that they were again active, but not overly so. They had a decent network of bubbles, and good taste, but they did not even come close to doubling in size.

Retaining 2/3 cup of each starter, I refreshed them again this morning and left them out to do their thing while I’m at work. Amy’s Bread tells me that I may need to continue to repeat this process for several days until I reach the point where my starters double in size within 8 hours of being refreshed. At this point, they should be healthy, active starters ready to be used in bread. We’ll see what happens…' stay tuned!

So, the planets aligned just right and Doug and I had a rare free weekend without Luke this weekend.

Whenever this happens, which is about twice a year, we try to cram all of the wild, rude, crude adult activities we can into the few precious child-less hours. We absolutely adore Luke, and our time with him is golden since we only see him on weekends, but with Doug working second shift, we have so little time alone together that every second is a gift.

As we both stare at another birthday barrelling at us like a proverbial freight train, we are keenly aware of the last threads of pure youth fraying and slipping away. Ah, sigh.

So, we sought various remedies against old-fartdom this weekend. And what fun it was! You know, it's good to be alive, if a little hung over.

Saturday we slept later than slothful teenagers on summer vacation. It was heaven! I haven't been that well rested since, well, I can't remember when. A leisurely cup o' joe at the local coffee shop downtown, and we were off to join some colleagues at an early evening baseball game (yeah, I told you we slept late!). There's nothing better than a minor-minor league baseball game to bring out the most immature qualities in otherwise mature, responsible adults. After a couple of beers, we thought we'd never seen anything funnier than grown men dressed up as vegetables racing around infield. Broccoli won, just in case you were interested.

By the seventh inning however, the watery beer and losing home team failed to keep our interest (the vegetable races were all finished) so we decided it was time to blow that grandstand. We snuck away from my husbands coworkers and giddily made our way to the car. We had a plan! We decided to go clubbing a couple of towns over.

After an hour's drive (in the new Prius and getting great gas mileage) and no map, we managed to find our destination - a swanky strip of neon-lights and glowing palm trees where hip young clubsters and chic middle aged restaurant-goers mingled. It was a totally unexpected sight for Doug who hadn't been to our state's capital in years. Gosh, Toto, I don't think we're in Pennsyltucky anymore.

We grabbed our overnight bags and after many unsightly contortions and permutations of limbs and bodies, we managed to transform ourselves, inside the little Prius, from casual sports spectators, to glammed up hipsters. I don't think I'll get my 6'2" husband to do the quick change in the car thang again, though. But for all the effort, he sure did look hot with his slick duds and long black hair flowing. Mmmm, mmmm!

The rest of the evening was filled with lots of beautiful young bodies (and two nearly middle-aged ones) getting jiggy with it, reminding us of how much fun it is to just let go, feel free, and dance the night away. And we did!