Greetings from the Great White North
Winter is coming! I wanted to say hello and to thank other members of this community for all of the great information on this site.
I've been lurking here for a year, and after journaling my failures and successes (something I highly recommend!) I finally feel brave enough to join the forum- and hopefully I can contribute something useful to others!
Last year I took a 3 hour adult education class on artisan bread baking, While the techniques involved for me were just too time consuming to do on a regular basis, the class did provide me with some inspiration, plus a sour dough starter to take home. I am happy to report that it is still alive and happy (and I've shared it with friends far and wide). I found some guidance on this site that helped me simplify the process, and now I bake bread weekly (mostly sourdough, a 50-50 sandwich bread (uses both starter and yeast), and rye (Jewish Deli style). Although it's not perfect, it is still pretty delicious (with the exception of some failed attempts at pizza dough.... but at last I now seem to have a recipe, after tweaking proportions from a bunch of sites, that consistently results in a dough that is acceptable to my husband, who likes to create a pizza every Friday).
I look forward to continuing to learn from all of you!
Diane