The Science of Sleep

Three Loaves
Whenever I can’t sleep, I always think it’s something I’m doing wrong. Those cookies I ate. That glass of wine I drank. Those vitamins I took. I think sometimes the body just doesn’t want to sleep. There’s nothing to blame this latest bout of sleeplessness on. Except possibly thinking too much but I don’t want to get into that now.

My sourdough came to life somewhat yesterday although I don’t think it was as active as the professional baker would like. But after babysitting that bowl for three days, there was no way I was going to put it back in the fridge until next weekend.

I did the math on all the fermentation and rest periods and figured out the latest I could start the bread and still get into bed at a decent hour. Of course I calculated wrong and needed an additional one-hour-fermentation periods and since I didn’t want to stay up until 11pm, I cut all the wait periods short. I was still shaping loaves after 9pm.

This recipe calls for 12-24 hours in the fridge and then straight into the oven. Initially I thought I’d bake them this morning but since I didn’t get them into the fridge until so late and I leave the house for work at a dark and ungodly hour, I decided to wait until tonight.

In sum: I’ve been working on this since Friday morning, cut corners pretty much every step of the way and still have no freshly baked sourdough bread for my efforts.

This morning I found concrete bits of dried dough in various places around the house. Also, new knife update: I managed to slice a finger on my left hand. 8 fingers left.

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