Yesterday, I moved all my baking supplies out of La Victoria. It could have been a sad day, but for me, it was just another step towards the evolution of Sour Flour. And considering everything happening at La Victoria, I was actually pretty happy, and got to drink some champagne.
It was La Victoria’s 60th anniversary, and although the party was small, there was a lot going on. Roger, from Soul Cocina, was cooking up another amazing meal, I got to see Will and his crew from HapaSF, and Mandy was picking up her Wholesome Bakery goodies to deliver to 331 Cortland. Although I had stopped baking at La Victoria a few weeks ago, much had changed already. New racks were setup, everything was rearranged, and I could see La Victoria turning into a more effective communal space. Roger joked that CNN called, asking about info about Sour Flour’s graduation from La Victoria’s incubator program.
Moving my stuff would have been difficult, but luckily Jaime let me borrow the La Victoria van one more time. I had to move 2 giant bins full of flour, about 12 proofing boards, a ton of linen, various buckets, my flipping board, my water sprayer (La Bomba), about 20 baskets, a speed rack cover, and a few random signs and paperwork. I loved my time at La Victoria, and do look forward to its evolution (a new bread oven is coming in soon), and to staying involved. I think one of my bigger mistakes was not documenting more of what was going on; I had plans of starting a blog in Spanish called Diarios de un Panadero.
Although we stopped selling bread well over a month ago, it has taken a long time to move into the next phase of Sour Flour. We had missed our Goal of selling 1000 loaves, which had a fairly demoralizing effect on me. But I learned a lot from what happened. The purpose of the goal was to prove the viability of a business selling bread; although I still believe it is possible, I see that Sour Flour is no where close to being in a position to do it. And I don’t even want to; I like giving away free bread. So we are back to free bread, and are moving on with our next goal of training 100 Sour Flour Bakers.
There is still much to figure out in terms of how exactly Sour Flour will be operating, but I think I’m finally ready to dive in and start doing more. We will be starting with a presentation on making starters at the upcoming Eat Real Fest, and will have more workshops coming soon. One thing I’ve seen throughout all of this is that there is a huge demand for Bread Education. So it is time to start teaching what I’ve learned, and in the process I will be learning a ton more.