Crafts, Brews, and HoBBies

Sourdough Madness, Sourdough Sadness - by Eldis_ So, it has been well over a year since this whole mess *gestures broadly* started. And it has been well over a year since the Big Bread Baking Craze of 2020. Now, the Big Bread Baking Craze did not really hit me that hard, except for the fact that it was annoying that yeast was sold out in literally every store I entered, because even before all of this I regularly baked bread. Well, mostly breadsticks, because those are delicious. I really really love baking, but I am

QUIBBLER CRAFTS, BREWS, AND HOBBIES also indoctrinated by society's beauty standards and bread is just about the only thing you can bake that doesn't have sugar (or any other, justas-sweet replacement) as an ingredient. With the added benefit that eggs aren't on the ingredient list either, which my wallet thoroughly appreciated. Biological eggs where the actual chickens who laid them are treated at least somewhat decently quickly cost at least €0,25 a piece.

And as a human being I love me some Carbs™ and as a true Dutchie I love me some bread, so bread baking it is.

Long story short: if you see me baking bread, I am either super stressed or really relaxed.

My friends know this about me, so a dear friend of mine gave me a book with bread baking recipes. It's a wonderful tome of a book, one I could easily defend myself with if any intruders enter my house (because Freya knows Goose has zero protective tendencies, he's too cute for that). I have already successfully made things like matzes and knäckebröd and a different breadstick recipe than I usually use, to name a few.

So last March, a year after COVID hit my country, I finally opened the book at the "how to make your own sourdough starter"-page and finally dipped my toe in the sourdough bread trend. Now. Some background about me and sourdough. I don't have any experience with it, and I have barely ever eaten it either. I had it once about three years ago, when the woman who owned the lovely Airbnb my parents and I were staying at on Vancouver Island had baked us a loaf as a welcome present. So incredibly kind of her! We were also allowed to pick from her vegetable garden and she and her husband invited us over for dinner once, it was really lovely. But I digress. The bread was nice and beautiful and we enjoyed it. It did, however, take me some time to get used to the taste. the beginning of online class because I was very stressed and I had thought that the dough would be ready before class started, but it wasn't. The professor said something

about it, since, whilst I tried to knead out of frame, I accidentally put the dough in frame when readjusting my seat. I pretended to stop kneading, but I did, of course, continue. There are some perks to this whole online situation.

This professor also happened to be my thesis advisor, and I had a meeting with him after the class. He is generally well-known to be very imposing and extremely full of him-

self, and he is also famously extremely secretive about everything in his personal life. Even his colleagues don't know his nationality, for example. He asked me if I was making sourdough bread. "No, just regular with yeast," I answered. "Oh," he said. "I have several sourdough starters. I have named them after English Kings, because they keep reproducing," he said. And I'm sitting there, in my room, trying not to absolutely burst out laughing with that new tidbit of information and have a serious conversation about my process for writing my thesis.

With this context out of the way, we are now a year later and I am holding this book, and I have a course from this same professor again and I’m desperately missing the wonderful Vancouver and Vancouver Island, so I finally decided to join the trend and go make my own real actual sourdough starter.

Fantastic.

That's the moment where it all went wrong.

Firstly, the recipe was extremely unclear. I believed I had to remove 25 grams from the mixture every day, and then add 25 grams of water and 25 grams of flour. This means, for those better at maths than I am, that the mixture grows with 25 grams each day. Yet I add the same amount of food, even though the mixture keeps growing. That, obviously, doesn't work. That’s like feeding a teenager as much as you fed them whilst they were still a toddler. I did get some bubbles, but not nearly enough to know it is active. And it was really, really liquid. So I do the only thing I know how to do: I Google it. And when Google doesn't show me any pictures of how liquid a sourdough starter is supposed to be, I turn to reddit. I have to say, r/sourdough seems like a wonderful community. And apparently a sourdough starter is supposed to be as liquid as American pancake batter. And you're not supposed to add the same amount of food each time, but do 1:1:1. Thank you for the help, long live the Internet.

And long live my sourdough starter. Because with this newfound knowledge, it did wake. It came alive. And how.

QUIBBLER CRAFTS, BREWS, AND HOBBIES I returned home from work planning on making my first bread with the very active sourdough starter, which I had named Piers Plowman after the middle English poem, which is funny because we have about three versions of this poem (technically more because medieval manuscripts are finicky, but for the sake of simplicity I'll say three), and each version is significantly longer than the other. So, just like a sourdough starter is supposed to, it keeps growing.

Anyway, I returned home from work, threw my mask in the washing machine, washed my hands and pet Goose and I heard a very strange noise coming from my kitchen cupboard. Specifically, the kitchen cupboard containing the weckpot with my sourdough starter.

That specific weckpot was about to explode.

It didn't. Explode, that is. Don't worry. IKEA makes wonderfully strong products. I'm a big fan. What it did do was leak. Not much, luckily, but after some frantic cleaning and replacing and opening the weckpot (resulting in a loud PUFF and sourdough splattering EVERYWHERE) I now had two sourdough starters. Enough to bake a bakery full of bread.

So I got baking.

I made one loaf of bread (successful, though very dense and not with those wonderful air pockets you see in pictures), two baguettes (with some air pockets, but not successful) and a delicious raisin bread (A+, amazing, highly recommended). And I still had too much sourdough leftover.

Now, you'd think: great! You have sourdough starter leftover, you can continue baking when you finish that loaf! No need to buy bread ever again! That's a wonderful way to save the planet, since you no longer have those plastic bread bags and you lessen your carbon footprint because your bread doesn't have to come from some factory Sif-knows-where. But no. I have learned an expensive (and heavy) lesson during my sourdough adventures, one that has left me wondering why this is so incredibly popular. Sourdough starters are wasteful. Sourdoughs have to be fed every day, the proportions being, like I mentioned, 1:1:1. So if you've got 100 grams of sourdough starter, you need to add 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. Every. Day.

You can quickly figure that after one day, this means you'll have 300 grams of starter. The second day you'll have 900. Etc etc. This is why you have to throw away half of your sourdough starter each time when your sourdough isn't alive yet. Which totals to about half a kilo of flour if you're lucky and your sourdough comes to life within five days. And once your starter is alive, you still have to continue to feed it! And when you want to turn it into bread you need to add even more flour, and you have to let it rise for 12+ hours! The process is not even made easier by the fact you've done all of this preparatory work!

So no. It was fun whilst it lasted, but I did send a message with a doughverload of dough-puns in my student association's group app asking people if they wanted some of my sourdough. I managed to spread out all the leftover sourdough over four new houses who will hopefully be more successful at making sourdough bread than I am, because I most certainly did not get a nice rise with those air bubbles. Instead, I got a more cake-like structure.

I'll stick to the little packages of yeast for my bread. The bread it creates is finished quicker, tastes better, has a nicer raise and is a whole lot less wasteful. If I use 300 grams of flour, I will eat that entire 300 grams. And that's what bread's truly about.

Do YOU have burning questions for our resident Seer and fairy, Madam Starflash? Got yourself in a relationship with a Vampire and don’t know if it’s going to work out? Debating on using a love potion on your biggest crush? Have a bully you’d love to get rid of?

Dear Madam Starflash,

Last week, my dear barn owl Saorai saw me send a letter with a different owl. Now she won’t look at me anymore! I explained to her that using a different owl for the letter was because I needed the note to be anonymous, but she keeps biting me whenever I approach her. How do I make it up to her? She's the best owl there is, but even in sending this letter to you, I am forced to use a different owl, which is making her even more upset!

Sincerely, A Worried Owl-Friend Dear Madam Starflash,

Hello! Unfortunately, I am taking a high number of summer classes. I'm a good student and I'm worried about my grades going down. The boggart in my third year convinced me that my worst fear is failing (do I sound like Hermione yet?). Do you have any tips for me to do well and not burn out?

Thanks!

Sincerely, A Nervous Student

Dearest Owl-Friend,

Give her time, and plenty of Owl Treats. She’ll come around.

May Fortune smile upon you!

Dear Madam Starflash I have faced the loss of a loved one recently, and many other people reading this may have faced this too. My question is, what would be your advice for coping with these losses?

Sincerely, A Viking With a Fedora

Dearest Viking,

This is a complicated question. Grief is different for everyone. Time is the only thing that will lessen the pain.

May Fortune smile upon you! Dearest Student,

Take your time. Make sure you take a thirty minute break for every two hours of studying and homework. Have plenty of healthy snacks on hand; feed your body, feed your mind. Find time for leisure activities. Set yourself up with a bedtime and stick to it; rest is very important. Talk to your teachers if you need help. And most importantly, remember to take care of yourself.

May Fortune smile upon you!

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------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Madam Starflash,

My parents are rather magic-phobic. Thanks to some memory charms, they don't know I'm a witch. However, my four-year-old brother seems to be a wizard, and it's difficult to hide. I can't keep asking to have their memory modified every time he uses magic, but I know first-hand how horribly he will be treated if they find out. I'm not sure what to do in this situation, as I can't exactly explain to a four-year-old what is happening. Please help!

Sincerely, Bad Parents

Dearest Parents,

Your parents don’t know what’s happening. They are not actually magic-phobic. Memory charms can be reversed. Get help setting them straight. Once they’re in their right minds, you will see that they accept you and your brother for who you truly are.

May Fortune smile upon you!

The Magician

Upright: Willpower, application of intellect/logic, balance Reversed: Indecisiveness, weak intellect, arrogance

Life isn’t all Mondays, sometimes the beginning is an excellent place to start. When it comes to the Major Arcana, the beginning is filled with an energy and fire similar to the Big Bang. Behold the Magician: a figure who uses the forces of the universe to accomplish his Will. He searches for knowledge to use - instead of holding onto the knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, he searches specifically for the tomes that will allow him to create what he needs. He is the Strength of Will and an excellent example of the proper application of Intellect.

When the Magician appears in a reading, he represents what all ‘ones’ or ‘aces’ in the deck represent - the moment of divine inspiration that marks the start of creation. In the previous article, I mentioned the correspondences of each suit; to put it simply, Wands are fiery drive, Cups are watery emotion, Swords are windy intellect, and Pentacles are earthy practicality. The Magician (which traditional tarot art shows with all four suit symbols) combines the energies thus: upon the moment of the idea (swords), the seed (pentacles) is planted, and through the nurturing of water (cups) and the drive of nature (wand), the seed grows. Thus the Magician is the Ultimate Incarnation of the ‘Ace’ theme. Whatever venture you are about to undertake, he shows the Will and Drive to get it started.

We connect this card with the Slytherin House, and its greatest member - Merlin, based on the most simple description of that noble house: ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness. He is searching for the Knowledge that will get him what he wants. While that may bring to mind a certain Dark Lord, such a goal does not automatically mean the Magician is prone to evil or selfishness; instead he is just as likely to use his knowledge to teach others. He understands the importance of balance and harmony; too much focus on the self is just as likely to throw things out of balance.

Where there are things as we expect them, there must also be the blocked or reversed path as well. The Magician reversed shows all of the Willpower with none of the control. He will immediately use the knowledge and power he has gained without thought of the consequences that await his brash actions. He will believe that whatever he does is destined to work, regardless as to whether he has put in enough effort to earn it. Think of the Malfoys: they have the resources, so they feel they are immediately deserving of the benefits that hard work and research would have normally earned them. Draco supplies the entire Slytherin Quidditch team with Nimbus 2001 brooms, which should have easily outstripped the Gryffindor team, but Harry’s skill and ability still defeated Draco when it came down to it.

As with all archetypes, this Arcana could be found in any house (including in distinguished Gryffindors such as Harry Potter or Albus Dumbledore). The purpose of the Arcana, and this one in particular, is to learn from all areas of life in order to find balance. Whether you are of the great and noble House of Slytherin or not, I encourage you to learn what you can from the Magician. He has learned much, and has much to teach.