Michael Hilburn
Elaine Boddy, Author of The Sourdough Whisperer

“There are so many experiences and stories of lockdown and you know, I know, how important baking was to so many people. Sourdough in particular. We know that when we feed our starter it comes alive. We know that we renew it and we see it respond, and we create a dough and we see it respond. And that life and renewal that came out of it, I think, was also another positive element. People going through the confusion and that awful time that we had. But also then the connection that it gave people… it was huge and it brought a lot of us together.”

Elaine Boddy, Author of The Sourdough Whisperer
Michael Hilburn
Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb

“In February of 2020, I was looking at commercial spaces, building out a business plan, and trying to decide between moving into a space or building a space… and I was like set to meet in March to create our own space in Bentonville. And then, obviously, March 2020 everyone’s lives changed significantly and my my choice either scale way up and take a huge gamble and buildout a bakery in the middle of a global pandemic or scale way back and move back into my house, and bake out of my house again…”

Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb
Baker, Entrepreneur, Forager
Michael Hilburn
Alexandra Allen of Wild Woman Bakery and LUV ...

“I use my sourdough starter, I don’t use my discard when I’m making cookies… and I maintain my acidity in my feedings, so i’m never going to have a super sour. If I’m looking for that well then I’m going to look for a grain that will be a little more active faster, and maybe leave it to bloom a little longer… and see how the flavor is changing and imparting on the cookie dough.”

Alexandra Allen of Wild Woman Bakery and LUV Cookie Co.
Author, Educator, Sourdough Influencer
Michael Hilburn
Anita Šumer of Sourdough Mania

“Sourdough…. It’s like a meditation for me, it’s getting my hands into the dough, feeling the dough, connecting with the earth, connecting with the Spirit. And it’s helped me so much. It still does. This is, perhaps, not the material point of sourdough, it’s more like a spiritual one.”


Anita Šumer of Sourdough Mania
Michael Hilburn
Andrew Heyn, Baker and Millwright

“We opened those bags of fresh flour, it was like ‘holy smokes!’ We’d never experienced something like this before. We had always just had white flour that was all about function and performance and not so much about aroma and flavor. And so we said, ‘we’ve got to do this, this is like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.’ So that was the impetus.”

Andrew Heyn, Baker and Millwright

Jeff McCarthy of Bread Service

Jeff McCarthy of Bread Service

“I am a fermentation maniac. I sit there at night and think about my starter bubbling away. There’s just something magic that happens between the ingredients going together and my hands getting involved - we call it the conversation with the dough. Every time I’m not talking to the dough I wonder why I’m not. You experience that and then you see how the product enriches people’s lives… What inspires me is fermenting bread and seeing what flavors and textures you can coax out of a powdery substance and water - it’s magic.”

Jon and Amanda of Proof Bread

Jonathan Przybyl and Amanda Abou-Eid of Proof Bread

On this episode of the Sourdough Podcast micro-bakery owners Jon Przybyl and Amanda Abou- Eid join me to talk about their journey from customers to owners of Proof Bakery in Mesa, Arizona. Jon and Amanda retell their life changing decision to leave their office jobs to become bakers - transplanting Proof to their own garage. They describe their array of 30, all naturally leavened products, a typical week in their not-so-micro bakery, and the relationships they’ve build with their customers and community that continue to motivate them grow their business. 

Proof Bread is a micro bakery that Jon and Amanda operate from their converted garage, selling their bread at several farmer’s markets in the greater Phoenix area. Jon and Amanda took over Proof from the original owner just 3 short years ago, when they learned the owner was moving out of state. Just a few days later they decided to keep Proof going, showing up to learn the craft and shortly after, buying Proof, starting their new careers as bakers. And I am excited to have them on the podcast to share their journey.

Baking Healthier Sourdough Using Ancient Fermentation at a Micro-Bakery | GRATEFUL

Arturo and Ana of Gusto Bread

Arturo and Ana of Gusto Bread

“We were forming a community around [bread], but we didn’t really know where it was going to go… I was excited with all the practice I had been doing for a few years, just working on that and going down that rabbit hole and I wanted to keep elaborating on it… that trip really did inspire me, it raised a lot of questions… and Ana also grounded me… because I wanted to open a bakery in that moment!”

Noel Deeb of El Bread Shop

Noel Deeb of El Bread Shop

“…I was painting, and I had to gradually let that go as we were adding more children to our family. I really just needed to carve out a space to be creative still, and that year of 2015, of us feeling desperate, I really felt like I was looking for something… you start tasting how real fresh grain tastes compared to stuff that’s been sitting on the shelves… and also after baking that first loaf, even though I remember many cuss words and burning my hands and it being really difficult - that it was just like an immediate addiction… I was like, I hated that - but I’m going to do it again…”

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Adam Pagor of Grain & Hearth Bakery

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Adam Pagor of Grain & Hearth Bakery

“And that’s what we’d been working towards….I was going to bed and waking myself up with alarms to go and fold dough and go downstairs and shape, and my wife would be pushing [me] and she’d be saying - it’s fine, it’s not going to be forever, just carry on, and eventually we will get enough for this to be able to be it. - So that was about a year that we juggled and that last contract came along and I quit from my job - that was it. It was a simple decision to make then.”

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Apollonia Poilâne of The World Famous Poilâne Bakery

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Apollonia Poilâne of The World Famous Poilâne Bakery

“My recipes were intended and made to recreate an at home experience of the Poilane baking methodologies… and I think, for all of the science we put into baking, sometimes, and I think that is also why people enjoy baking so much, it’s about surrendering to the fact that our ingredients have to come into conversation with our hands and we have to surrender to what nature has given us that day.”

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Justin Gomez of Humble Bakehouse

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Justin Gomez of Humble Bakehouse

“You can be crushing it bake after bake after bake, and then one misstep, or you get too comfortable, or try to do too many different things - it will knock you back to square one real quick and teach you that bread, and sourdough specifically, is a fierce teacher, and if you come at it without the time and attention to detail, you’ll get humbled in a second.”

Lisa Clayton of The Beach Cottage Bakery and @sourdough_nouveau

Lisa Clayton of The Beach Cottage Bakery and @sourdough_nouveau

“It’s important to have that support network at home because cottage baking can be a very isolating activity. You’re not working in a bakery with other bakers that you can share your successes and failures with and when you’re alone you can get in a bit of a spiral where you have self doubt and lose confidence. And there is a community online that you can reach out to but having an immediate support network is very important”

Weston Perry, Musician Behind The Sourdough Podcast

Weston Perry, Musician Behind The Sourdough Podcast

“In the spirit of the same creativity that you find in something like the sourdough community… you thrive off that community. You wouldn’t be doing it without it… All these worlds collide… Some of the stuff I played originally, indie rock stuff, which is kind of like this beach rock vibe, I was like, maybe that would be cool, cause were still like west coast, even though it’s sourdough, there’s this homey vibe, also this beach rock type indie thing would be cool… it all just kind of came together real crazy like that.”