You know you're a breadmaker when.....

Great thread

YOU KNOW YOUR A BREAD MAKER WHEN....

Your 2 year old can says the word "artisan" when refering to bread.

You dissect every bread recipie you see and convert it to bakers %

Scoff at Jack in the Boxes fake ciabatta burgers.

You feed your starter before yourself in the morning.

Da Crumb Bum

King Arthur, and Monty Python is the second thing you think of---you can't leave home without finding a piece of dried dough stuck to you SOMEWHERE---you see a picture of somebody else's dough rising, and it makes you feel happy, and a little jealous...

...and you can't get to sleep at night because you're thinking about your starter and timing the next bake. 

...You're out to dinner and you can't stop thinking about your starter, lovingly, I might add.

...You're at the movie theater, thinking about your starter, again, lovingly (lol) and modifying recipes in your head.

...You're planning the next bread you wish to bake and meticulously trying to plan your schedule around it.

...You decide to finally put your starter into the fridge but realize you really feel something is missing when you didn't have to feed it on your regular schedule.  Get it out the next day, feed and feel lots better.  Ahhhh...

...You dream about huge containers for more flour.

...You dream at night (literally) about baking bread and, of course, your starter. :o)

When you have more pictures on your camera of starters and bread than of your kids!

You can't remember your kids name but mistakenly call him by your WW starters name!

You remember the first time you heard bread sing! (crackle)

Felt like a goof when defending white bread!

Fun! 

- You plan your meals around the bread you want to bake this week

- Friends/family apologize to you for serving "wonder" type bread and/or expect you to bring your own when you visit.

-  Definitely agree with the "find dough stuck on your clothes" and also flour on the front of your shirt.

- Oh and there's a fine layer of flour dust in hard to reach places in your kitchen that you only notice when your dog is trying to lick under the cabinet.... 

- You can't remember the last time your bought bread.

- Even after a few hundred loaves your find yourself making "awww" and cooing noises when you peek in the oven halfway through baking...

- Relatedly, you make scoffing and/or clucking noises at the "french bread" at the grocery store bakery AND Bonus Points if your family members also make disparaging comments! 

- You have an excel spreadsheet with all your favorite formulas so you can make whatever batch size you want--wait, maybe that's just nerdy me!

Ooo... can you share your spreadsheets?

(PS.  my oven has been out of service for the past week... I'm dying here.)

...you try all kinds of different lighting exposures to photograph your latest loaf

...you search the web to find all the latest bread porn

...you scan all your bread books to find a one-day recipe you can squeeze in somewhere

...you find ways to include 'diastatic malt' in everyday conversation

...the family loves whatever you bake, but you know it's not good enough yet

...you go to Sam's Club and come home with 100 lbs of flour (25 lb bread flour, 25 lb all purpose flour, and 50 lb high gluten flour, because high gluten doesn't come in 25 lb bags and bread doesn't come in 50 lb bags)

...you bake more bread than your household can really eat, but there are always friends willing to take some off your hands

...you bring someone a loaf of bread as a gift, and have extra bread knives to go with them (thank you Dollar Store!)

...you kind of snort when you see a quickbread recipe and think "Whimp!"

...you have more than 1.5 lbs of instant yeast in your house most of the time

...you can't justify spending $2500 on that 1951 Chevy that you lust after, but that $2000 wood burning bread oven kit is still looking pretty good

...you make 10 lbs of dough in one batch, just because your new mixer says it can (it says up to 15 lbs, but I'm working up to it)

...your guests are suprised when there aren't fresh loaves of bread waiting for them.

...you spent more on bread baking supplies in the last year than you did clothing your children (to be fair, my parents buy all the kids clothing, so I kinda cheated on that one)

Half the freezer is taken up with ziplock bags of sliced bread---but you are baking more today because you can't wait to try that new method you saw in The Freshloaf.

You are thinking of buying a second freezer!

George

- It's been months since you used the word flour without at least one adjective in front of it.

- You scan this website anxiously waiting for the next "BBA vs. Glezer" recipe challenge thread.

- You know how to pronounce the word couche.

- Your friends have stopped asking for you to share your recipes because everything is in grams.

• Your colleagues at work call you, "The Bread Guy"
• You have more pictures of your bread than you do photos of some of your relatives.
• You've broken your oven at least once trying to steam it.
• When you heard about the guy who disabled the safety lock on his oven for the clean cyle so he could pump up his oven to about 975 degress F to get the "perfect pizza", your first thought wasn't, "This guy's frickin' insane," but, "Hey, that's kinda cool."

So I guess I am not the only one who has worn out their library card.

My wufe says I have a problem but thats dosen't stop her from eating the bread 

Well at least I have baked something besides bread lately

I've no library and I love cookies!  Mini Oven

How about when you find yourself driving over 3 hours to buy 50 pound bags of KA flour because no other food supplier near you carries it?  Or spending each night reading a little bit of a bread book while your partner reads a romance novel?  

Ah, even better...You know you're a breadmaker when you trade hard red winter wheat on the Chicago Board of Trade (agriculture futures market).   :)

you know you are a breakbaker when you are away from your kitchen for three weeks and a week before you get home - because you just can't stand it anymore - you go on the King Arthur site and order $50 worth of all different kinds of flours and grains - just to make sure you'll have it when you get home!

oh, and there will be a couple more bread books wating for me in an amazon box when I get home too.

 (all I can say is at least it beats race car driving - that would be a REALLY expensive hobby, and more dangerous,  although the steaming process is a bit parilous at times!)

those cookies looks so good I would eat the whole batch if they were in front of me right now!

Well they (the cookies) are a slightly modified recipe from the Cook's Illustrated Baking Illustrated book.  The best part about them is instead of the standard 1T measurement for the dough to shape the cookies it uses 1/4 cup.

...when your shirts don't stay clean for more than about 3 hours after you put them on. They have starter, flour, dough, or all of the above on them because you were so involved in massaging dough that you forgot your apron.

*Looks at her shirt* yes, I think I am on my way to becoming a breadmaker :) 

*laughs so hard tears roll down her face*

This is SOOOOOO hilarious!

I am not an artisan baker yet, but I have been know to dance with my bread on occasion (well a little more frequently), AND can relate to almost all of those comments!

My Partner refers to The Fresh Loaf as "Nadias Bread Porn Website"

If he walks past the PC and sees me on it and if there is a picture of bread he always says, "She's at it again....bread porn"

I have a flickr site dedicated only to my bread addiction and photo folders only of bread. :)  

My name is Nadia, and I am a breahaholic.

Thegreenbaker

when...

your sister invites you over for Easter dinner and says "can you bring some French bread with you?"  Not, "have you baked bread lately."  No.  She just assumed I had.  She did this today, I have some dough resting as I type this.

Too scary.  I'm a novice and I can relate to almost everything posted here.

Steph

LOL, I can relate to *everything* others posted! A few more...

when...

> you can't fit anything in your freezer because it is full of speciality whole grain flours and frozen preferments

> you *seriously* consider spending $3000 on a new stove just to have a better oven for baking

> you spend your time on the web looking up the specs for flours marketed to professional bakers

> you won't even try a bread recipe (much less buy a baking book) unless it gives the ingredients by weight (rather than by volume)

> you consider your bench scraper an essential kitchen tool

and last, but most important, you make bread because, well, you just like to! Friends, family, co-workers, neighbors are the recipients of your loaves. Isn't it nice that we're such a sharing bunch!

if you find yourself so wrapped up in your passion for breadmaking that you forget to eat.  That reminds me, I've been meaning to grab a sandwich.

Oooh, I'm loving this!

I have one (and it points to my lack of attention doing laundry):

Your mate complains of tiny grayish bits of dough stuck to all his/her laundry, and although you suffer from the same, you don't mind a bit.

 Oh, and, you don't mind running a few errands in town with flour on your clothes, because that shows you're a baker!

You know you're a true breadmaker when:

-your wife schedules her activities and social life around your breadmaking.

-your daughter calls to find out when the next loaf will be ready to slice

-your son decides to call a date and tell her that he'll be late because a loaf of bread will be coming out of the oven in just a few minutes...

-your son's girlfriend asks to come over for some fresh baked bread... 

-the neighbor comes over because he caught a whiff of bread baking, again...

-the dogs start fighting over the crust

-you decide that TV commercials need to be longer so that you can knead the dough longer

-you buy a kitchen with a pass-through so that you can see the TV while you prepare your bread dough - incidentally a new house came with the kitchen...

-the new range/oven unit that you want costs over $5,000 and your wife doesn't object.  She just wants to know how soon it will arrive...

Cliff. Johnston
"May the best you've ever seen,
 Be the worst you'll ever see;"
from A Scots Toast by Allan Ramsay

°Your partner comes within view of your laptop screen and you find yourself turning it sideways to block his view of yet another picture of bread!  ..And you tell him it's a screen saver.    Closet baker?

°In my case, you want to throw egg whites into everything you bake because it's become a habbit.


°Your partner asks if you have any money and smiles after you reply,  "got no money, honey, but I got the bread"    

Another devotee: 

A friend told me that she was disappointed when she went into (2 weeks overdue) labor with her fourth child: she was enjoying using her new sourdough starter too much.

I overheard the neighborhood talking about us, that we were that weird family who has doesn't have even storebought bread. They have to make their own, and some of it had HORSE FEED on it! (oats and grains I assume?)

                                                                        Audra

.......When your first stop when you log on the web is The Fresh Loaf.

And your second is Dan Lepard's site.

...Your 7 year old son names your sourdough starter "Perky", and he reminds you to feed it like it's the family pet.

I went to grocery store very available lunchtime to look for different types of flour.

Ask my friend to bring back flour everywhere from the world. 

test and try different recipes and dispatch all the end product to friends for comments.

That's my living!

Your husband sees you buying so much flour, he suggests that the bottom 30 inches of the new pantries be devoted to huge flour bins... and instead of rolling your eyes at his intended sarcasm you take him seriously ... and go on to explain that most of your flours need to be stored in the fridge, but that when you get your grain mill that would be a great place to store the wheat kernels.

I live alone and eat most of my own bread.  So I scheme to make smaller loaves so I can eat fresh bread just about daily (but not get fat).  Also, I just went online and ordered 75 pounds of whole grains.  And, yes, TheFreshLoaf.com is a several-times-a-day indulgence.

Rosalie

while you're on vacation, you stop into every bakery you see.

when I sat down at my home computer this morning and there was a hunk of dried starter on the chair.

When even your girl friend puts flour at the top of the shopping list ahead of 'food".

 STOP!  You guys are killing me.

Bob

You've just baked 3 entirely different breads, and are sorry that you don't have time for that last formula you want to try.

 Your nickname was "slidething" becauce you play guitar and do a lot of slide style blues ~~ BUT lately it`s cuz you have a peel in your hands instead of a guitar - LOL have 8 guitars and 4 different peels - the better half likes the peels - she says they are cheaper to buy -

My lap-top went from guitar related to bread related sites.

 Slide__Out

...you go to the hardware store for paint and screws and whatnot, but your wife ends up buying all the manly stuff while you're in the hand tools section considering which ones would make good dough implements.  

...you consider those little sachets of instant yeast to be insultingly small. 

...you spend several hours on the web searching for the perfect mixing bowl for your next birthday...which is 8 months away. 

Prandium longa. Vita brevis.

My dogs recycle quite a lot of my bread-- they are tuned to the sound of a bread knife too. I dice up old bread and leave it to dry for mini-treats, and my homemade dog biscuits always include a generous dollop of starter discard, as well as the occasional mush made of 'failed' bread (thanks for the tip Mini Oven!)

who had delayed mourning when a small building was torn down and leveled. When you were offered free bricks for your garden sidewalk, the foundation was only knee high and then you found out it was the old villiage bakery!

My dogs also come to "PIZZA" They love the edge pieces.

... you're thinking what bread to bake tomorrow, eventhough you haven't actually started baking some for today....

 ... you noticed since you started baking, your family hasn't bought any bread from the store...

... you look in the mirror and wonder if you're starting to look like a bread...

 =)

I just inventoried today.

I have dough or flour on my cell phone and my house phone.  My brother invariably calls when I am mixing.

I have flour on my mouse, from running back to Floyd's recipe for blueberry cream cheese braided bread to check my braiding techniques.  Mine suck!  But the bread was good.

 I have dough on my computer chair.  There is flour or dough on the stove dials, the microwave (from reheating coffee when I didnt get a cup finished because the oven timer went off.)

Every cabinet door as well as the refrigerator doors have flour smudges.

It's a good thing my SO likes my baking products, or I would be in deep doo-doo.

You can't stop thinking about the next bake.

You wish there was a sourdough 911 line.

You're obsessed with your new oven but glad you don't have to change your handle because it's still a mini oven.  :) 

And you like to give this 'ol Topic a kick once in a while to "wake it up"  so others can laugh and add to it.

Mini O

-your math (and calculating w/o calculator) has improved considerabily because of baking

- i second flour and clay (dried sourdough) almost everywhere

-your english has improved because of english bread-sites

- you have friends from xxx-in-the-world at your place and when asked where on earth you know them from you answer "i know them from this baking club on the internet"

plus all you've mentioned before...i'm still trying to figure out how to get my obsessions with plants, dogs and bread into one life..

... to add

-you can't wait to slice a loaf of bread just baked, not to eat it in the first place, but to take a look at the crumb

...at just the height of the oven's window so you can sit and watch the first 10 minutes (with bated breath and fingers crossed) for that marvelous oven spring.

Your children know what a couche is (other than a diaper), prefer sourdough light rye to store bought sandwich bread and critique each new bake.

Jane 

Thanks for a bunch of LOLs, people ;-)

 Ok, here goes...

... your freezer is full of your *competitors* products awaiting forensic analysis

... your sole topic of conversation for the past six weeks has been the price of second-hand steam ovens on eBay

... your cats run screaming when you open the flour cupboard

... it makes your week when you find exactly the right size of proving box at your local office supply store

... your major use of Excel is in roughing out new bread recipes

... you travel to the next county for the sole purpose of buying someone's sourdough

... you ring the yeast manufacturers to enquire about bulk prices

...you have to get a joiner to make you a new bookcase for the bread books

...you call your new cat "Fougasse"

 BakerSteve

...when you're okay with getting an appliance for mother's day. (Getting a 6 quart KitchenAid Pro tomorrow.)

...when you make midnight flour runs. (I've done this at 11 PM, so I was close.)

...when you can tell the difference between brands of bread flour by sticking your hand in and feeling.

...when you have a sourdough, sweetbread, and baguettes all going on at the same time.

...when you give up almost all your other hobbies for baking. (I have a lot of darkroom equipment, a nice Speed Graphic, and a Mamiya C3 that I refuse to sell or give away yet.)

...when your 17 month old daughter actually turns up her nose at store bought bread.

...the spot next to your hushand in bed is empty at 3 AM;

...and if you do get in bed, you fall asleep with bread books, not your husband, in your arms;

...your husband sees bread as his competitor and wants to poke your risen dough;

...your husband frequently moans "Bread Again?!";

...you scream at a boule with excitement: "So cute!" and your excitement escalates with the rising height of your freshly fed starter;

...you demonstate Stretch and Fold to your kids and expect them to master the technique;

...family night activity is making Hong Kong style sourdough egg puffs together;

and one more:

...you stop concerning about your waistline, instead, you are paying more attention to the alveoli in your crumb.

• While shopping, you leave the cart with your wife to go find something. When you come back, she's hidden a store loaf in the cart to see if you'll notice...
• You then have to put everything from the cart back and start over, because the cart is now polluted.
• You offer an extra SD boule to a neighbor. They take it, stare at it a bit, then in all seriousness ask, "Thanks! How do I cut it?"
• You can hand cut a slice from a sandwich loaf better than most machines.
• You use a pastry brush to remove the knife crumbs for your 'crumb shot' pic
• You look over at your starters and say to them, "I know you're hungry! You're next on my list!"
• Your wife isn't bothered by these conversation with your starters anymore.

- Keith

...you take a supply of premeasured flour and a scale on vacation, so you can feed your sourdough in the hotel room!

Your children accuse you of paying more attention to your wild yeast cultures then to them.

...you find Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" lacks detail.

...you wish you had taken Organic Chemistry in college.

...you have at least two minor injuries on your hands from baking bread.

...you have to stop at three different markets to shop for flour.

...you bake a pizza because its "easier" than ordering out.

...you harrass the Panera Bread people about the definition of "Miche."

...you've called every Health Food store in the area asking for rye berries.

...you're jealous of people who live in Wyoming because of the availability of grain.

...your girlfriend doesn't want to go out to eat anymore.

...you wonder what the point of baking mixes are when they are just mostly flour.

...you've scalded your hand on an overheating Kitchenaid.

...you feel guilty selling your Kitchenaid on Craigslist because people might think its as good as the old Hobart models.

...sometimes you wish your Kitchenaid would break.

...you make Brioche and Bagels more often, because it demonstates the need for a better stand mixer.

...you order Chinese food simply to get those little sauce containers for holding another starter.

...you wonder why Virginians don't grow more Spelt.

...you constantly have to retract when you tell people that making bagels is easy.

...you want to make cake but are afraid of running out of flour for bread... when you have 20 pounds of flour in your freezer.

...you get really annoyed when the flour you picked up at the store doesn't specify whether its hard red winter or spring wheat.

...one pound bags of flour seems pointless and silly.

...you have to abort mxing a dough because you realize your oven is already going to be baking another bread when this one is ready.

... you take dough to work with you.

..you've taken a 1.5 hour (early) lunch from work to bake a proofing loaf.

...you've taken a 2.5 hour lunch from work to go home and bulk ferment.

...you've taken a 3.5 hour lunch from work to go home and make pizza.

...you've taken a sick day because you felt behind on baking.

...you start to find Reinhart's introductory text to be more poignant than informative.

..you think everybody should read, "Brother Junipers Bread Book: Slow Rise As Method and Metaphor"

 ...you have a kitchen scale accurate to 0.01g.

...your friends ask you for a bread recipe to "start out" and you give them one that takes 12 hours.

has 7 items, 4 of which are breads you are going to bake, and one of the remaining 3 is "bake bread."

David

..you say good morning before the sun has risen.

..you have several batches of dough in the fridge, and more than one loaf of bread waiting to be eatin at any time.

for the next recipe to try, even though you have two 1/2 loaves of different breads waiting to be finished and 4 loaves in the freezer! or more!

Betty

For your anniversary, your wife gives you the bread knife you've been lusting after.

...your throat tightens and your eyes begin to tear just looking at an ear.

David G

You happen to notice that you have 3 different breads on your plate at dinner and that doesn't seem strange.

:-Paul

You are back at the car after a day at the ocean and find yourself degasing and folding the beach blanket into a batard.

Your wife swears you just said 'Goodnight' to your starter ... but you really don't remember.

Dave

Oh, you guys..........................  It's all so true.  I don't understand it yet, and I'm sort of scared.

You know your bread baking is an obsession when you start buying little bread tools for family and friends (none of whom have given the slightest indication of sharing your bread passion), just knowing they'll be delighted. 

Your wife cedes the kitchen and pantry to you.

You know you're a breadmaker when...

You don't think it strange that planning your new dream kitchen involves two full sized Neff ovens each costing over £1,000, (one for proving, one for baking)

You have to plan ahead to empty the freezer by baking day to make room for all the loaves.

You ask your daughter to scour the shops in London for brotformen or banneton for your birthday present.

You have difficulty putting the week's shopping in the refrigerator because of all the pots of SD starters.

You are trying to duplicate the boules sold in Harrods.

You've started a thread in one of these forums on making an obscure type of bread.

MiniO just brought this link up again - Thank You!  I laughed my way down the list. I thought it was only me - nice to know I'm not alone.  I found myself in so many of the above,

Here's my additions:

- My children ask to feed the starter - it's the family pet- "Happy"

-I've considered hiring a "starter sitter" for when we go out of town

- nixed that idea because the sitter wouldn't be careful enough. (I'm just sure of this.)

Marni

... It'll take 500 years of baking to recoupe the money spent on books and equipment by "making our own bread to save money"

This week I had a real You know your a breadmaker when... moment:

My husband needed a lift to the airport for an upcoming business trip and I made him timed the trip based on my rising/shaping schedule...

MommaT

-You spend dozens of hours over a hot summer thoroughly enjoying sweating and aching before, during and after digging out a 4' deep 4' wide hole in the ground, breaking up old concrete with a sledge hammer, and carrying hundreds of lbs. of salvaged sand/gravel and field stones 15' in diameter, patiently explaining to anyone who will listen WHY you are building an earth oven in your back yard upon cringing to the question "can't you buy that kind of bread at BREADSMITH" (or some such place). 

-thinking "why wouldn't I order 50lbs. of artisan flour if it's a good price and on sale, too."

-planning your Sunday around firing up the outdoor oven, making breads, and pizzas later on, and more breads when the oven cools down again... and calmly answering questions about your weekend with "I made bread for 10 hours"

-you realize you better get off this thread even though you're enjoying it 'cause that sale ends in 34 minutes, and you just want to play it safe ordering  through a new website 

- when you couldn't bake the weekend before last because you were in S. D.(South Dakota) pheasant hunting, last weekend you were deer hunting in Mn. and you get up at 5:30 on Monday morning to start a quaruple batch of San Joaquin Sourdough just because you have to

_when you go from looking for a golden crust to seeing how dark you can get it

Steve

You post pictures of your baking projects on your Facebook page.

Your family sees the pictures on your Facebook page and volunteer you to make cinnamon rolls at the "day after the wedding breakfast" that is almost a year away.

You get invited to holiday dinners and never get to show off your other cooking talents because you "will be bringing the bread, right?".

You make special trips to the grocery store when you find out KA bread flour is on sale.

You discover after years of walking down the baking supplies aisle that your grocery store does actually carry a surprisingly decent assortment of flours beyond Gold Medal AP.

You have conversations with other shoppers in the baking supply aisle while perusing the flour selections.  Honest, this happened to me two days ago.  The woman saw 5 bags of KA bread flour in my cart and started asking my opinion of all sorts of baking supplies.

You consider opening your door and windows in the dead of winter while you are baking to share the wonderful aromas with your neighbors.

...you gaze at the freshly baked bread every 3 minutes for the next several hours

...your husband asks you to bring bread instead of presents to his parents at X'mas

...apologize to the starter when they are over-ripe

I'm so touched...all of you breadmakers...what a family.

Now this may be crossing the line:

...when you contemplate quitting the day job (with good benefits) and be a breadmaker

This thread makes me smile with tears.  Thanks.

Michelle

You should be preparing to cook for thanksgiving, and all you are doing is baking bread!

Hi my name is will and I am a bread a breadaholic

You know you're a baker if you have more than 1 type of flour in the pantry (have about 8 at last count)

You know you're a baker when you get invited to dinner IF you bring home made bread or rolls.

You know you're a baker when your freezer if full of WW flour, pizza dough, loaves of baked bread, and pie dough.

You know you're a baker when you have 3 or thermometers in the kitchen.

You know you're a baker when you have a big flat baking stone in the oven and a peel hanging on the side of the fridge.

You know you're a baker if your house shoes are covered with flour.

Hey buddy.... could you spare a cup of flour??!!

You know your a baker when the first thing you do after getting home from family vacation is start making dough so it will be ready to bake by the time you get the car unloaded and unpacked.

when I remind that my starter will be 2 years old december 27...and you'd wish to invite pals from TFL to quito to celebrate their happy birthday...Paolo

These are all very true. We laugh but it's truth! I haven't read them all so this may be a repeat: How about when you get a slice or loaf of another bread and you can't just bite into it without inspecting it visually, turning it over, pulling back the crust, biting into it a little at a time and allowing the flavors to be on your tongue for a second before swallowing, checking everything from crust to crumb, smelling it, turning it over, holding it to the light and generally taking a full two or three minutes before actually eating it the way "normal" people do.

-when in your fridge you keep a pot with 1 and 1/2 pounds of 100% hydr..sourdough and....inspite of it....you keep a 1 pound of dry sourdough in a zip bag "Just in case!!!! Paolo

...only because you're levain for New Year's Day bake is due for its final feeding!

(Yep, I really did that.)

David G

.....your friends comment about the white powder you always seem to have on your clothes.

For three meals in one day.

Breakfast: French toast made with Proth5 baguettes.

Lunch: Herbed roast chicken sandwich on Proth5 baguettes.

Dinner: Roast trout with garlic bread crumb topping made with Gérard Rubaud baguettes, steamed broccoli and fresh-baked San Joaquin Sourdough baguettes. 2007 Edna Valley Chardonnay. 

I didn't even notice until my wife pointed it out.

David

I just found this thread and I love it!!!  So many of these things qualify for me.  I made a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread on Saturday, and when I cut into it on Sunday and saw how pretty it looked on the inside I felt happier than I had all week.  My mom jokingly called me a "bread geek" when I told her that!

At first I thought the whole "naming your SD starter" thing was kind of silly, but then I changed my mind and my dad named my starter "Harvey", so Harvey it will stay :-)

I am glad to know I am not the only one who "literally" dreams about my bread!

you keep digging up this "oldie but goodie" thread    :)