But sourdough doesn’t care. Sourdough is an echo of an earlier time, before texting, before Google, before instant anything. Days passed slower in the Old World; life wasn’t rushed and hectic. Writing a letter was an event in itself, never mind when the reply would eventually come.

I poked and prodded obsessively at the meager bubbles in the jar of flour and water, and impatiently decided after three whole weeks that the starter was ready. Baking the bread involved a slew of confusing gibberish, as I was bombarded with terms like “float test,” “autolayse,” “hydration,” “open crumb,” “oven spring,” “stretch-and-fold.”

I just want to make bread! Instant yeast isn’t this demanding.

I’m not sure why I was surprised at how flat the results were.

But I tried again, doggedly determined to grasp this concept, all in the name of my healthy-ish-ness. I kept track of my experiments, scribbling mad-scientist observations in a notebook.

The next batch was disappointing as well.

Yet the third achieved the exalted oven spring!

I made mistakes. I once used a “low-protein flour,” and the challahs looked only vaguely like challahs. On another occasion, I accidentally used oat flour (wrong container), and the loaves crumbled on contact.

There was always a correlation between my inability to rein in my eagerness and a flop. When I refused to wait, and sourdough in essence means “waiting,” then it refused to cooperate.

You can’t rush me! I could almost hear it cackle. I’m slow. I’m steady. But I’m worth it.

There’s waiting and there’s waiting. The hours of my life that I spent anxiously waiting for the carpool to come — I’m not seeing the upside to that. But the years of dating, waiting, hoping, praying, had a very tangible result, and they both (my husband and our baby) love the sourdough experiments, to the point that our Shabbos lunches are now milchig, so we can slather the challah slices with butter.

After months of research and development, after 11 experiments, I’ve realized that the three whole weeks I waited for the starter to get ready wasn’t long enough. It was only after months of feeding and tending to it that it finally became a magnificent beast.

The things that matter, like relationships, don’t just happen. They require effort, time, and perseverance. There’s analyzing potential, nurturing connections, energizing the bond, then the maintenance required to keep it together.

Has making sourdough bread taught me to have more patience?

Maybe, a little bit.

My first successful batch of six-strand whole-wheat sourdough challah emerged from the oven imperfectly beautiful, the braid high and glossy, but cracked here and there, a sign I didn’t allow it to rise long enough before putting it into the oven.

But there’s always another opportunity to wait longer, and that will bring me even closer to getting it right.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 722)