Happy new year everyone.

I enjoyed a good batch of sourdough biscuits that my wife made
yesterday, and I'm working to season a new starter which is barely a
week old. I'll wait another week before I make bread with it. Two
reasons: 1. I'm lazy, and 2. I like a starter with a little more flavor
for bread.)

My wife is a serious and excellent bread baker, anyway. She makes
several kinds of bread with commercial yeast, and is now eager to start
learning sourdough. In the past, I'm the one who always made sourdough
loaves, when testing starters that I made for local bakeries. But now
my wife is catching the bug.

It's been five years since I worked with sourdough. And when I look at
the info I posted on the web (at the jimsdesk.com site which received
"rave" reviews here -- well, some raving anyway) I can see why some of
you might be impatient with me. I do apologize. I have to work very
hard to take (and keep) good notes. And memory alone often simplifies
things.

I went looking for the notes I had stuffed into the bread books used
five years ago (Bread Alone and the book by Woods on sourdoughs from
around the world) all I had was the books. We've moved since those
days, and whatever I had is long gone. As for the books, I noticed
some comments in the faqs that I'd have to agree with.

So I'm starting over with a new starter, taking a few photos and a few
more notes along the way. I'm working on a new site that will include
basic info on several types of things -- sort of aback to basics kind
of thing. It will be up soon. And I want to be sure that the info I
offer is sound and useful.

I've shut down my old jimsdesk site and moved the contents to
www.goodwordusa.org, (the old jimsdesk stuff is sitting under a "short
stories" link, if anyone's curious). The new site is already online
but not ready for visitors.

Anyway, I've found that my wife is willing to experiment with biscuits
and pancakes while she gets used to using sourdough. She's not fond of
the sour smell at this point, so I've told her to think of it as
buttermilk or cheese that adds flavor to things. And that seems to
encourage her along. (You should smell some of the cheeses she uses
where she works!) She does like the sourdough breads that can be made.

Anyway, just thought I'd say hello and let you guys know what's
happening with us. This is a great newsgroup that I sure could have
used when I was on my own years ago, trying to hammer out some decent
starters. I was fortunate to figure out the basics. Lots of others
just give up after a few flops.

Jim