The Sourdough Starter That Eats Before I Do

My wife, Marjorie, has kept the same sourdough starter alive for forty years, and its name is Herbert. Here are a few short stories from our kitchen in Millers Ford, each with a lesson attached. I learned every one of them the slow way, which is the only way I learn anything.

Herbert Eats First

Every morning at 6:10, Marjorie takes a quart jar out of the refrigerator, stirs in a scoop of flour and a splash of warm water, and gives the lid a pat. Then she makes coffee. Then, eventually, she gets to me.

I raised this once, around year twelve. I pointed out that I had lived in the house longer than Herbert.

“Herbert doesn’t ask what’s for breakfast,” she said.

“I could stop asking.”

“Herbert has hardly ever missed a meal, and he’s never complained about one.”

I didn’t have a comeback. I still don’t. Herbert eats first. It has been this way for forty years, and the only one who has adjusted is me.

The lesson: The same small cup every morning points us to the One whose mercies are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Instructions for a Jar

When we drove to Tucson to visit Marjorie’s sister, we hired the Gaffney boy from across the street to watch the house. Dustin is fifteen and very polite.

For the cat, Marjorie wrote one line: “Food in the blue bowl.”

For Herbert, she typed two pages. Single-spaced. There was a diagram.

Dustin texted a photo of the jar every evening at seven. On day three he wrote, “Herbert is bubbling a lot. Is he okay or is he mad?” Marjorie wrote back that bubbles meant he was happy.

We came home to a healthy starter, a fed cat, and a teenager who now asks how Herbert is doing every time he sees me at the mailbox. He has never once asked how I’m doing.

The lesson: A small thing kept faithfully deserves a faithful person to hand it to. (2 Timothy 2:2)

The Thanksgiving Rescue

Our daughter-in-law, Kelsey, is a wonderful cook and a ruthless cleaner. Last Thanksgiving she volunteered to tidy the refrigerator while the rest of us watched football.

In the back she found a gray jar with a crust on top and a smell like an old gym bag. She did what any sensible person would do.

Marjorie heard the trash lid from the living room. I have seen that woman move fast exactly three times in forty-six years of marriage. She was across the kitchen before the lid finished closing.

Herbert was fine. Kelsey was mortified. Marjorie hugged her and sent her home with a loaf.

Kelsey still says it looked like a science project gone wrong. She is not wrong. It also makes the best bread in Pruett County.

The lesson: The plainest-looking thing in the house may be the one holding the most life. (1 Samuel 16:7)

Pastor Dale’s Cup

Marjorie gives Herbert away. Not all of him. A cup at a time, in a clean jelly jar with a ribbon and the instructions, shrunk to fit.

Over the years she has handed out starter at baby showers, funeral dinners and the fall bazaar at Second Street Community Church. By my rough count, half the kitchens in town have a little Herbert in them.

Pastor Dale stopped me after service last spring. “Your wife’s bread is in more homes in this town than my sermons are,” he said.

I told him that was probably because people actually finish the bread.

He laughed. Then he asked if Marjorie had another jar, because his had died. He’d forgotten it for a week.

“Happens to the best of us,” I said. It has never happened to Herbert.

The lesson: Small faithful things spread farthest when we give them away. (Matthew 13:33)

My Week on Duty

Last March, Marjorie sprained her wrist and had to keep it still for a week. That made me the feeder.

Day one, I forgot. She reminded me at 6:11.

Day two, I set an alarm on my phone. I set it wrong. It went off at 6:10 that evening in the middle of Wednesday Bible study, and I had to explain to the whole room that it was time to feed Herbert. Mrs. Alcott asked if Herbert was a dog. I said it was complicated.

By day five, I was up before any alarm. I stood in the dark kitchen with the jar and the flour and found I was praying. Nothing fancy. Good morning, thank You, help Marjorie’s wrist, help me not forget the jar.

On day seven, she took the spoon back. I was a little sorry.

The lesson: A small duty done every morning has a way of becoming a quiet time with God. (Psalm 5:3)

The Grandkid Math Problem

Our granddaughter, Piper, is eight and has recently discovered multiplication. She sat at the kitchen table and worked out that forty years of daily feedings comes to 14,600 meals for Herbert.

“Did Grandma ever miss one?” she asked.

“Twice,” Marjorie said. “The day your daddy was born, and the day Grandpa fell off the ladder cleaning the gutters.”

Piper looked at me. I looked at the ceiling.

“So both times were kind of because of Grandpa,” she said.

“The first one was a happy occasion,” I said. “The second one was not.”

Herbert, for the record, came through both days just fine. Marjorie fed him a double helping the next morning and carried on like nothing happened.

The lesson: Faithfulness is not a perfect record but picking up the spoon again the next morning. (Proverbs 24:16)

Who Gets the Jar

At supper not long ago, Marjorie asked a question nobody wanted to answer. “Someday, who’s going to feed Herbert?”

The table went quiet. Our son studied his green beans. Kelsey looked at the refrigerator like it might bring up Thanksgiving.

Piper raised her hand, the way she does in school. “Me. I already know the math.”

So now on Saturday mornings, Piper comes over and Marjorie teaches her. Flour, water, stir, a pat on the lid. Piper talks to Herbert while she stirs. Marjorie talks to him too, and pretends nobody has noticed.

Last Saturday I shuffled into the kitchen hoping for pancakes. Two heads were bent over a jar, one gray and one blond, feeding it.

Herbert eats first. I have made my peace with it. There are worse things to stand in line behind.

The lesson: The smallest daily faithfulness, kept long enough, becomes something you can hand down to the people you love. (Luke 16:10)

Walt Brewer, still second in line for breakfast.