Cooperation

By Ladleah Dunn, Salt Water Farm’s Sous Chef and Farm Manager

In the last few years I have been overcome by the desire to pursue a deeper and integrated approach to whatever I put my hands to. Back a few years ago when I was apprenticing on a sheep and goat farm, this was not always the case. In the beginning, milking the girls in the wee hours of dawn, I would occasionally find myself in a place where the only thing that kept me in “control” was the fact I had thumbs. Over time I began to see it as a beautiful dance of the ewe’s repeating generations of habit and tradition; queuing up in the early dawn, waiting in line, up to the platform to eat grain. Me, tending the other end to glean the milk tasting of clover and blueberry leaves. Those early morning hours alone with the animals left a lot of time to meditate on this idea of control. Cheek against warm flank “control” began to feel like a ridiculous concept.

I have a starter, or the starter has me. With nearly the same regularity of farm animals, I divide it, feed it, and bake with it. It requires exercise, renewal, care. Much like working with sheep or goats, you can’t always predict how they are going to behave. It’s the process of feeding, rising, and falling of millions of little organisms. Working together to make a flavorful dough. Having your own leaven, or starter, can be a rewarding and expressive way of baking. It requires more of you, the baker. Adaptation, intention, commitment. Releasing your need to control the end results. This isn’t a standardized product that can be purchased, but all the effort it requires can manifest in beautiful ways. None more beautiful than a warm, buttery croissant. I made my first croissants with my leaven this week. The entire process took nearly three days from start to finish. Feeding the leaven and waiting until the moment it passed its “float test”, where the yeasts are active and strong enough to rise the dough. The mixing of the dough, rising it, proofing it. Shaping. Waiting. The most thrilling part was the weighing of butter and pounding into a large rectangle, approximately 2/3rds the size of the dough rectangle. The process of the three turns the dough takes as I rolled and folded the butter into the dough. Resting, and relaxing (both the dough and I). Then final shaping, glazing with egg wash and baking. The smell while baking was almost too much! For those of us who are fans of butter, the entire house still smells of warm toasty butter hours later.