I recently have been really enamored of baking, particularly sourdough baking.

Some years ago, one of my sons gave me as a birthday gift, a class at the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, NY, and I chose one having to do with baking breadI.

It was marvelous!

As a special thing,at the end, the instructor gave anyone who was interested a bit of sourdough starter that had been alive and passed down for over one hundred years.

Well, needless to say, I was interested and I have been feeding and caring for this starter ever since. 

To be honest, the idea that I have a live "creature" that stands ready willing and able to help me bake bread, asking only in return some flour and water periodically to eat -- it is almost out of an SF novel!  This gloriously symbiotic relationship really brings me joy!  

So now, even in the midst of a hot summer, I am finding great pleasure in baking all kinds of bread.