Hi. I'm writing this from my rental 5th wheel. Our house burned about 1 week ago and we were forced to rent an RV while they rebuild the house due to smoke damage.  Anyway, one of the silly things I was so disappointed about losing is my fairly new sourdough starter that I made all by myself. I just started baking bread (other than a few minor efforts in the distant past and bread machine bread which I don't count) and I made my sourdough starter about 2 months ago. Had to toss it due to smoke damage.

Yesterday, was reading this forum while avoiding packing, enjoying the rainy weather. I ended up digging out my Kitchen Aid blender, decided I couldn't live without it for 3 months. I'm working on trying to figure out grill baking on my gas grill. I went to Home Depot yesterday and was so disappointed that they didn't have Saltillo tiles for me to line my grill with! Anyway, started up a pizza dough at 1am and I'll finish it up Friday. (whole wheat from Peter Reinhart's recipe). Hopefully, I can find some tiles by then. In the meantime, I have to work 3 twelve hour shifts. Tonight I think I'm going to start a new starter with the directions on this forum which are much simpler than my first starter mix.

Looking forward to trying all the wholegrain recipes and techniques that I glean from this forum. This is awesome! The french fold and other techniques for use with wet doughs have already helped me tremendously! Sure wish I knew that the first time I made a rye bread!

Doc Tracy