Successful sourdough boule, Ploughman's lunch..

Well, here's a long overdue post.. and about nothing other than food. I haven't had much stuff to say since Christmas came to town. But, I've been fighting mightily with my sourdough cultures, and have finally found success. My starter can now easily double, if not nearly triple,  in 9 hours or less. It was an uphill battle, but I finally beat it. Or, rather, came to terms with it.. I'm not sure I've completely won.

..that's a pic of what I consider to be my first sourdough loaf success. It's not perfect. Far from it. the sour is not really there, the crumb is not dense, but not open, either. It's not really tall, but neither is it a discuss like the last one either. It's perfectly edible, but I *did* forget to install the salt. I still wonder what the difference would have been had I put that in there.. I also failed to get a good slash formed on top, so it never really opened up.. but that's fairly minor compared to forgetting to put in a standard component part, I figure.

What that said, this is what I had for lunch:

That is *my* cheese, *my* beer, *my* bread and .. err.. well, Jody's sausage.  But hey, other than a little foreign sausage, that meal was not just prepared, but entirely formed/created/fermented/crafted by my hand. It was a neat though as I stuffed myself on these bits for lunch today.. And I'll say, the stars of the show were the sausage and the cheese. I haven't had this cheese in months, since it was new.. and man, what a difference a bit of age can make on a cheddar cheese. Awesome! The sausage was just plain awesome all by itself. The beer wasn't awesome, but it seemed to pair well with the spicy meat and cheese parts.. so, overall, the meal was really good. And now that I've finished my lunch, and the beer glass is empty, I may just go crack open that new bottle of Kombucha I put in the fridge last night for a taste test.. which, incidentally, I also made myself.