If someone asked me if I were a “prepper” my answer would be “no”. These days I live in an apartment on the south part of Warsaw, Poland. It’s close to the companies I work in and I just don’t have the cash yet for that lovely chuck of land I have been dreaming about. “Lovely” to me is a place with a nice lake or pond and without light pollution, not to mention fresh air!
In fact, for fun, find where you live on this interactive map and see the air quality where you live. Yes, in Warsaw I certainly do not have fresh air!
Side note: Rocket Mass Heaters are amazing!
I digress (get used to it). I have been stuck in this apartment for one month. I have to say that this has just been an extended winter for me. I don’t leave my apartment much during the winter as I am able to work from home. So what have I been doing with my spare time? Besides trying to get some new companies off the ground, time on the computer and binging netflix, I have been trying to learn some new skills.
Daily Bread
My newest skill is sourdough bread. Normally I am not really big into bread. However, with everything about life being a giant question mark right now I want to be prepared for the worst case scenarios. Now I might be wrong, and I hope I am, but I think that we (humans) will have a big problem with food in 2020. Bread is arguably the most important food invented by man. These days though I would say that most modern people do not know how to make bread.
Prior to this “event”, I was confident that I could make a loaf of bread with a recipe and some yeast from a packet. The thing is though, on the very first day of “lock down” I was told not to forget bread from the store. At the grocery I decided NOT to buy bread. I decided that because in Poland there are loaves of bread in open bins and that just seems unsanitary given the circumstances. Instead I walked around the to the section that has yeast. It was gone…
Well I knew from a TEDx event that it is not really all that complicated to make a “starter” to bake bread at home the old fashioned way. So that is what I did.
Simple Starter
20 grams of Flour (unbleached)
20 Grams of water.
Put it in a jar, mix it up, cover it with a paper towel and check on it in a day. Then add 60 grams of flour and 60 grams of water, stir, then check on it the next day. This is known as a 1:3:3. That is to feed your starter: 1 part baby starter, 3 parts water, 3 parts new flour. If you really want to geek out on starting a starter check out this video, his channel is also highly recommended: