“Thanks.” Jake cleared his throat, then looked at the pans of blondies Charlie had made earlier. “I don’t know how you keep from eating this stuff all day long. That would be my downfall.”
“Oh, I forgot dessert,” Charlie said. “I’m happy to slice these up.”
“I’m good,” Jake replied. “Still full from dinner.” He lifted his camera from the nearby table. “Can I take a couple of shots while you’re setting up? The lighting in here is perfect right now, with the twinkle lights.” Charlie opened her mouth to say she didn’t feel up to having her picture taken, but Jake had already snapped a photo.
“Action shot,” he said.
“This is happening whether I want it to or not, right?” Charlie said, sighing dramatically but with a smile.
“I’ll stop if you want me to,” Jake said, bringing his camera down.
Charlie, feeling silly for her trepidation, replied, “No, it’s totally fine. This is for the bakery. All good.”
So Jake took a few photos while Charlie pulled out the ingredients for the sourdough. She tried to relax and focus on the prepping ahead of her, though she remained acutely aware of Jake and his camera.
“I know you’re making it seem like I’m doing you a favor helping out tonight, but I’ve always been curious about Woodburn Bread’s famous sourdough. And I’m not the only one. Just today, actually, Sharon was talking about the starter when I picked up Bonnie’s diet biscuits. I mentioned I was taking some photos of the bakery.” Jake put his camera down, rubbed his hands together. “So, go ahead. Teach me.”
“Wait— Why does Sharon Marston want our sourdough recipe?” Charlie asked.
“I think she wants to expand her dog biscuit line,” Jake replied.
“I didn’t realize that.” What Charlie meant was that she didn’t realize Sharon made dog biscuits, but she figured Cass probably would. And it suddenly clicked why Sharon was asking her about starter when she’d called the bakery—she was trying to get the Woodburn family recipe to use as her own. Charlie wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or irritated.
“I might need to get you to sign a nondisclosure agreement.” Charlie gave Jake a pointed glance.
“No need. Your secrets are safe with me,” Jake replied, putting a hand to his chest.
She tried not to think about all the secrets she could tell him as she took the family’s sourdough starter down from its shelf. She lifted the cheesecloth and took a sniff. “Ah. Perfect. Bubbling away and ready to bake. It’s the one thing I haven’t messed up yet—” She caught herself. “Uh, over the past few busy days. Okay, so for the bread we make every day I use up nearly all of this starter.”
“But then what? You’ll have nothing left for the next day.”
“That’s the cool thing. We feed it and it replenishes itself. Like a little daily miracle.”
“What do you feed it?”
“A slurry of flour and water, nothing special.” She dumped all but a cup of the starter into the industrial stand-mixer’s bowl. “Why don’t you go ahead and feed it? To replace what we’ve just used, about four cups of flour and a cup and a half of water should do it.” Charlie handed Jake a set of measuring cups.
While he fed the starter, she added water into the stand-mixer’s bowl, along with several fat pinches of table salt, explaining what she was doing. “And now we add the flour, form it into a dough, and leave it to rise. I’ll shape it into loaves in the morning.”
“That’s it? Here I thought you were going to let me in on some incredible alchemy, but it’s just flour . . . and water . . . and a little salt.”
“Don’t you think that’s magic in and of itself?” she said, reaching for a whisk and handing it to him. “That something so simple can yield something so great?” Charlie poured the measured flour into the bowl. Though she no longer made the family’s sourdough regularly, her hands knew precisely what to do. How much of each ingredient to use, which she measured out of habit, though she didn’t need to. Nothing on set was like this—the desserts and confections she made required such precision. But this was something she had done for most of her life, and she felt nostalgic being back at it.
“It does seem magical,” Jake said, and she got the feeling he wasn’t talking about bread anymore.
“Okay, start mixing,” she said. “If it’s too sticky add more flour, and if it’s too dry, add more water.”