Sam Whitaker · August 14, 2026
I want to tell you about the time I accidentally started a sourdough experiment that I had absolutely no intention of running. It was a Tuesday morning, I was standing in my HDB kitchen in a sweaty t-shirt, and I had just smugly declared to my husband that my new wet market wild yeast starter … Read more
Sam Whitaker · June 14, 2026
The lid barely cracked open before the smell hit me — something sharp, almost like vinegar folded into ripe yogurt — and my first thought was, that’s stronger than usual. That was the same starter I’d fed the night before, the one that went into the loaf I served my mother-in-law at dinner a few … Read more
Sam Whitaker · April 6, 2026
Somewhere around year four of baking sourdough, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I hauled a loaf out of the oven, set it proudly on the cutting board, and hollered for my husband to come admire my work. He studied it for a second, then studied me, then said—kindly, but not kindly enough—”Babe… it’s pale.” He … Read more
Sam Whitaker · April 5, 2026
Somewhere out there, one baking blog will swear whole grain sourdough is the single healthiest thing you can pull out of your oven, while another insists whole grain locks up half your minerals before your gut ever gets a shot at them — and one of those claims is flatly wrong. I found this out … Read more
Sam Whitaker · April 4, 2026
A brutal, un-air-conditioned July heat wave had turned my kitchen into a rogue proofing box, and that’s the backdrop for the Saturday morning I stood there holding two loaves that looked like twins, fully convinced I’d wrecked them both. My shirt was dusted in flour, my coffee had gone stone cold on the counter, and … Read more
Sam Whitaker · April 2, 2026
No recipe card on the internet will warn you that your starter has a number attached to it — a real, measurable number that predicts whether your loaf ends up tasting complex or like something peeled off a locker room floor. Mine certainly didn’t warn me, which is how I ended up handing my mother-in-law … Read more
Sam Whitaker · April 1, 2026
The dough sat there on my counter, flat as a pancake and weeping a thin film of liquid across the top, giving off a sour-but-wrong smell — sharper than the usual tang, almost tipped over from ripe into rotten. It was pushing 11 on a Sunday night, two full days of careful tending headed straight … Read more
Sam Whitaker · March 30, 2026
There’s a spot on my counter, just to the left of the stove, where my dented steel mixing bowl always lives — and one particular evening it held a dough I’d thrown together in a rush, certain that autolyse was a fussy extra step “real bakers” didn’t need to bother with because I was already … Read more
