During this challenging period, please stop getting together with friends, and baking sourdough bread. Just don’t do it.
This isn’t easy for any of us. I’ve enjoyed gathering with many of you in groups of 5 or more around Dillon’s reclaimed walnut butchers block kitchen island as ambient bacteria rapidly ruined a large mound of moist room temperature wheat in front of us, thus commencing the Satanic ritual that augurs the arrival of all sourdough into this realm. The time we spent in close proximity while partially decomposing what was only moments ago perfectly suitable human nourishment was often the highlight of my week
We were just seven young single men with ponytails, clutching cans of craft brew from Peterborough or wherever, and single, watching the backslide of civilization this culinary travesty represented while standing tightly together in that small Toronto loft, freebasing CBD and irony, and being single.
It was a more innocent time.
But times changed and we had to change too. It’s no longer just about giving up on social norms, personal hygiene, and any chance of finding a mate. These days, gathering a group of friends to make sourdough bread would run afoul of our vital efforts in social distancing. So I implore you, resist the dual and equally magnetic siren calls of socializing and sourdough. Our nation depends on you in these trying times.
It works like this: the young, healthy and active ones must refrain from large gatherings and the baking of sourdough so that our more vulnerable neighbors, many of whom live with weakened immune systems and an appropriate level of disgust toward bread that starts spoiled, can be spared the ravages of this horrible virus and those ridiculous wicker baskets with a sourdough loaf partially wrapped in a red and white checkered cloth napkin. What exactly is going through your mind, Kai? You’re not Little f**king Red Riding Hood. You’re a hipster who makes ice cream out of charcoal and left Detroit because it got “too bougie.” Enough with the baskets.
The current emergency hit home one morning when my own elderly parents found two warm sourdough loaves left for them on their porch, two! I know the white family down the street meant well, but I have to push back pretty hard on this one. Please step out of your house only for the most essential trips, and to leave homemade regularly-leavened whole grain bread on my parents’ porch. That’s it. Before you ask, I’ll allow some fresh fruit as well, maybe some of Olivia’s rhubarb pie–so good–but that’s as far as I can go. They have a bulb out in the basement too, so add one of those if you have a spare. That’s it! No other outings. Lives are at stake.
Finally a word on our valiant grocery store employees, some of the real heros in all of this madness. We owe them all the patience and consideration we can muster. Yet everyday, dozens of shoppers return home to their families only to discover the bread they purchased is in fact sourdough. Like many of you, I thought this only happened in China or Italy. So I was shocked when this happened here, to me, just this afternoon. That’s why I wanted to share this urgent message with you today.
At some point our country will have to reckon with the years we spent neglecting the risk of epidemics and the unchecked encroachment of sourdough into our nation’s food supply. Small-government types said “the private sector will handle it,” and the sourdough lobby said “let consumers decide,” as though there is a parent somewhere that actually wants to serve slices of old damp dish sponges to their children. But restoring our public health departments and clearing the food system of sourdough is a problem for another time. For now, we need an emergency declaration requiring everyone to stay home as much as possible, use hand sanitizer when entering public buildings, maintain two meters distancing, and place accurate warning labels on all sourdough bread: “Decorative. DO NOT EAT.”
We can get through this. We will get through this. And when we do, restaurants and schools and malls will reopen, there will be parades in the streets and concerts in the parks, and we will have learned so many important lessons, found the essence of our humanity and restored the connectedness of our communities.
If we each do our part, we can all soon feel safe again in our world, feel safe again together, and feel safe again bringing home bread that won’t turn out to be sourdough.