Culture

We had a power cut late on Boxing Day. We’d just come downstairs to the studio to check all was well with the world before going up to bed when -pffft! All went dark.

Sorry….a bit of a daft photo!

It used to happen quite frequently around here. A bit of rain or a strong wind and the lights would go off for an hour or so before everything magically sprung back into action and normal life would continue. We were all geared up for these occurrences with torches on hand, ready, but these days we’ve gone a bit soft. Thinking we needed to conserve the power in our phones, I reached over to my swimming bag where I knew there was a tiny Maglite hooked onto the zip pull: my saviour when opening the gate on a dark morning. A quick check confirmed it was the whole village out and not just our RCD being super-effective (it wouldn’t be the first time we’d sat in darkness for a couple of hours before realising that a flick of a switch in the garage would have been the answer) and we toddled up to bed in the hope that all would be well come morning.

With no TV to watch - we usually take this opportunity to watch whatever rubbish we’ve missed - I reached for my Kindle and looked for an easy read. Like most Kindles (I assume) mine is packed with a huge collection of free samples of recommended reading and 99p special offers that I’ve not got around to starting yet. I opened the first one that appeared on the home screen - title Sourdough. Described as “comforting and thrillingly odd” and “wonderfully written and absolutely brilliant” - worth a try, then?

It’s not often I read such a satisfying book on so many levels. It was an easy read in many ways; a bit of a page turner in fact. But I didn’t want to rush through it, because there was a lot to think about in there. It proved (sorry) to be rather more than I had thought and raised (sorry again) one or two issues in my mind - this was so much more than a book about breadmaking! Not only that, but every so often, it made me laugh too!

What’s not to like? And yet, this isn’t a book for my bookgroup, sadly. We have at least one member who would rail at the American setting and would immediately dismiss some of the concepts in there. It’s not the kind of book my Hero would enjoy, even though he bakes sourdough bread and begins most days by feeding “mother”. So I share it here, in the hope that Jordi is reading or that perhaps another one of my friends has read it already? If so, please tell me what you thought and if you, too, were crazy enough to google Mazg ?! If you haven’t read it, there’s a fun review here .

Incidentally, should you ever have the need to look inside our freezer, please do not be alarmed by a bag labelled “Clive’s Mother”. Clive Mellum is the baker who got us into sourdough some ten or more years ago in classes at Shipton Mill and we treasure the live sourdough starter he shared with us. Anxious that it might not survive lengthy periods in suspended animation in the fridge when we are travelling, we have a couple of “spares” in the freezer too.

I’m not sure I will ever regard Clive’s Mother in quite the same way again!