Put your hand up if any of you rushed out to buy baking ingredients in the first few months of the pandemic. The initial months of the crisis prompted a keen interest in baking and particularly the crafting of bread. Flour and dried yeast became scarce. Sourdough went viral.

Why was this and what did it say about us? Zoe Williams wrote in The Guardian back in mid-April, ‘It shows the daily loaf retains its ancient, essential role – providing sustenance, social bonding and satisfaction’.

Yes Zoe, there are grains of truth in what you write. I nodded along enthusiastically as I read this. Baking is good for the soul.

When the pandemic struck, baking provided moments of calm amidst chaos. A way to feel grounded, with our hands inside a bowl of dough, whilst the world felt turbulent, out of control and scary. It offered a sense of purpose and a feeling of achievement. I believe food writer and TV cook, Nigella Lawson identifies this feeling: “one of the ways to interrupt anxiety is to let other senses take over. Touching things, smelling something, listening. Baking really has so much of that, because when you’re kneading dough, or you’re stirring a bowl, you are really immersed in the world of the senses. And that’s really very important, because otherwise you’re trapped in your mind, and that isn’t right now a very comfortable place.”

We searched in vain for flour and the mills worked hard to provide. We struggled to get hold of dried yeast and so people turned to cultivating wild yeast. We could experiment in our home kitchens and briefly fancy ourselves as scientists! Sourdough starter became synonymous with lockdown and was the most googled word in those early months.

Additionally, it gave us a plan. It gave us a routine. It also offered us a degree of simplicity. The only ingredients in sourdough are flour, water, a pinch of salt and time. Those early days of lockdown had us locked inside the same four walls and we needed something to punctuate the monotonous days. Making bread provided that escape. It gave us something to nurture. It made us slow down and notice the changes in the dough. Mindfulness at play. It made us work with nature as we relied on fermentation for the magic to happen. We marvelled at this. It enabled us to exercise in our kitchen! Much kneaded (sorry!) as we were limited to the one-exercise-outdoors-a-day rule for some of this time. Who knew? Stretching and folding your dough is physical! We were getting a workout! It promoted self-care. Taking time to create this slow food and put it into our bodies increased our sense of wellbeing and self-worth. We noticed that we felt better eating this slowly fermented, natural bread. We researched why and learned about the benefits to our gut health. We were hooked.

In essence, making bread for ourselves, our family, our neighbours felt…good. It made us feel down to earth. Grounded. Working with fermentation, we were connecting to nature; to the grain, the field, the farmer, the miller. Perhaps we also felt connected to our ancestors too. The loaf can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians and the very first markets. It has been the fuel of societies throughout history and has played a role in some key historical events. In its own unpretentious way. It connected us with distant places. As Lawson writes, ‘all bread bakers feel united. People are baking bread in many different languages’.

My own story begins with the knowledge that baking is in my bones. My grandfather was a baker and worked for his large family bakery in my hometown in Oxfordshire. I grew up eating good bread. I am a teacher and I am a confident sourdough baker. I teach people how to make sourdough bread. I also have a sourdough starter with a wonderful story. It comes from San Francisco and I have cultivated and have shared it over 100 times. The COVID crisis for me meant furlough for several months and home schooling my two children. After I was asked for the fifteenth time to share my sourdough starter, proceeded by ‘what do I do with it?’ (as there are many roads which lead to Rome, there are many ways to bake a sourdough loaf) I decided to launch a straightforward sourdough baking workshop project on Zoom.

It was a success, and I was fully booked each week for the first 4 months. What started as a small idea for friends in my local community soon became a rewarding full-time job. Positive word of mouth recommendations meant that I was soon posting my sourdough starter all over the UK and beyond, to Ireland and France.

My students, learning in small groups, would meet in five sessions over the course of two days, making sourdough from scratch together. But this felt more than a simple workshop. Friendships were formed, stories exchanged. A virtual community soon grew and I began to notice people sharing recipes, bread, offering to buy flour on behalf of others and giving support when others faced a challenge. It was humbling. I soon had over 300 members in my private Facebook group where the focus is on learning and kindness. This makes me feel proud.

Towards the end of the summer, important local Mental Health Charity, Oxfordshire Mind, contacted me to ask whether I would run a workshop for a group of staff. I did this in October, and this further brought to my awareness the strong connection between baking bread and boosting metal health. It happened to be World Mental Health Day during the weekend I taught the group and I felt compelled to raise awareness and give something back. I launched a fundraiser in my baking community called ‘Love your Loaf’ (it’s a great pun, I know!). ‘Baking bread for better mental health’.

I asked my baking community to bake bread for someone in their community, especially someone they wished to reach out to. I encouraged them to include a positive mental health quote or sentence with their bread offering. The idea was that they then make or ask for a donation to our JustGiving page.

I saw this as a campaign for boosting mental health, where people bake (and enjoy the soothing process of it) then pass it on (a beautiful act of kindness) and in doing so connect (at a time of isolation) and offer a lovely gift whilst raising money and awareness of Oxfordshire Mind.

BBC Radio Oxford asked me to speak on air about the campaign and over £300 was raised for an important cause. This is a fundraiser I plan to build upon and continue each October.

You can visit my JustGiving page for more info. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/gypsy-baker

As the late October nights drew in, I launched another project, this time focusing on reducing food waste and healthy eating. It is estimated over half of the UK’s 24 million Halloween pumpkins are destined for food waste each year. I formed a partnership with a local social enterprise, Waste2Taste, which uses waste food (surplus from supermarkets and the food bank) to create healthy meals for those in need (recently they provided meals for underprivileged school children at half term) and they run a café where a percentage of their proceeds supports a local homeless shelter, The Gatehouse. I worked with the founder/chef at Waste2Taste and together we developed a recipe for a (waste) pumpkin sourdough loaf which we published with a supporting tutorial on our social media channels to spread the message about how to reduce pumpkin waste at Halloween. BBC Oxford invited Waste2Taste and I to share our story and it felt important to promote the cooking and eating of seasonal produce and talk about reducing food waste.

https://www.waste2taste.co.uk/

So here we are in national lockdown number two in 2020 and the need to create, feel cosy and connect is real. I am receiving bookings for my sourdough workshops and selling workshop gift vouchers in the run-up to Christmas. They are selling like hot…loaves. I can send my starter all over the UK and teach remotely over Zoom directly into bakers’ home kitchens. I teach in a small interactive group format (welcoming family groups, colleagues, friends or individuals) so that I can guide and explain the process fully, virtually holding my baker’s hands at every stage. We have fun together and create beautiful, unique, natural bread we can feel proud of. It is a skill which can last a lifetime and be passed on. The ancient Egyptians were certainly onto something when they discovered sourdough starter!

I include delivery of sourdough starter and a digital handout in my package too. All are warmly welcome to apply and if anyone is interested to know more details, my website is:

https://ox4gypsybaker.wordpress.com/

Love your Loaf, in both senses.