For the love of Sourdough: Day 17

This week found Tom finishing the hearth bed and me busy test baking. By the time Sunday evening arrived, both Tom and I felt a great sense of satisfaction with all that had been accomplished.

I was encouraged when I woke up to find my starter incredibly active and ready to do it's work!

The life of our bread.

I spent all day Thursday baking bread with the flour I had received from General Mills. With each step of my dough mixing process I was pleased with the dough development and finished loaves.

Whole Wheat

Kalamata Olive

Until the oven is finished, this is how I'm baking my test loaves.

I've approached a local Gourment Food/Health Food Grocer to see if they would be able to bring in the General Mills product for me. They were very willing to see if they could help us in our search, now we all have to be patient as we wait for the suppliers to respond.

Tom was up early Saturday with his focus on finishing the hearth bed, get the concrete shelf in place and get the sides of the oven laid out. He also wanted to make sure that we had enough bricks. When you have to purchase and receive your oven supplies from 600+ miles away, you always have this queasy feeling that you've not ordered enough material, even when you double and triple check your layout. Well, this did indeed happen with the Lumnite! Remember a few Blogs back when Tom was able to get the firebrick and Lumnite because of a trip to Phoenix for his employer? Ughhhh!

So I called Mason Mart in Phoenix and they did indeed have 3 more bags and could ship them via freight. The hitch . . . the cost of shipping 3 bags would cost us more than we paid for the original 6 bags that Tom originally picked up! Yikes. We were in a bind for sure. That extra shipping money we would have to spend was allocated for other material. We really didn't want to waste the money on shipping, and even a drive to Phoenix would have been costly with the gas prices as they are.

Then up to the plate comes the home run pitcher! A friend from our church was willing to pick up the 3 bags of Lumnite for us this past week because he and his father were taking a trip to Phoenix. What's even more amazing is that the place that they needed to go to was only 7 miles from Mason Mart! This is pretty incredible when you consider just how big Phoenix is! So a big THANK YOU to Arnold and his dad. And I'll be able to return the favor since his wife, Nancy, is involved in a fund raising dinner that will need bread :)

Now with this issue solved - Tom was able to better focus on the job at hand.