“Especially for somebody who’s life isn't going great right now, I think she finds it comforting that all that sourdough bread is is flour, water, and salt. There’s nothing else in there. So I think for her to find comfort in being able to create something beautiful from just the mundane parts of her own life.”
Campbell Macfarlane, Creator of the RM2020 Oven
Chris Lem, Home Baker and Pizza Aficionado
Kristen Dennis of Full Proof Baking
“I think that was the key part of the success of the Instagram account was being very open, sharing my successes, venting about my failures…. Obviously I saw accounts like Trevor Wilson and Maurizio Leo, and I saw what they were putting out there. And that is what I aspired to be. Something that was giving back to the community that I learned from - that’s really the key for me at this point.”
Hannah Dela Cruz, Author of Sourdough Every Day
“I think I really relate with people who picked up sourdough during the pandemic. I think sourdough, for me personally, provided a lot of structure in my life at a moment when I was really lost and didn't know what was next for me. I would wake up everyday, feed my starter, see what was going on with it, go to the blogs and read about it, and learn something new about it everyday. It was kind of a distraction at the time and also a really great way to have structure in my life at a time that was really confusing and I didn't have any.”
Betsy Gonzalez of Osono Bread
“That was really the space that gave me the confidence of wanting to be a baker… [it] is necessary to have mentors that look like you… these are two women telling me that I can be a real bad ass lady baker… I think you need to ask yourself what responsibility will I take on in my community as someone who might have a platform…”
Michael James, Author of The Tivoli Road Baker
“I was a chef for 10 years but I always stayed behind to help out on pastry, or I was always helping out on bread. That’s kind of where that little bug comes from. It was all yeasted bread back then, did all the kind of scrolls and rolls, and gradually… I got Dan Leopard’s book, The Handmade Loaf, which is something I had when I was about 20, 21 and that was something I would just sort of play around with if I was at work or at home and just read and fantasize about making these sourdough breads from all over the world.”
Claudia Carter of the California Wheat Commission
Josh Berger of Josh Fox Bread
Karl de Smedt the Sourdough Librarian
“The future of bread lies in its past… and so we started to think - what is the past of bread? If you look in history, bakers have baked breads based on sourdough. It is the very fundamental thing of baking, it has been done for 5000 years… and the bakery, as such, has been disrupted for 150 years…”