Knowledge Share Description

Sourdough bread baker aficionado, Sebastián Pérez, will be sharing their experience with the world of sourdough over the past 5+ years. Beyond focusing on the technical and highly measured approaches to the baking process, they will be sharing and encouraging an intuitive, sense-led practice.

Falling in love with the taste and texture of sourdough at a young age was one of those life moments of alignment and affirmation—like finding your people—the relationships that confirm your feeling of being alive and feeling good in your body, and whisper to you through your senses, “yes, this is real, this is good…” Complex and subtle—rich enough to tickle the infinite depths of our sensorial potential—sourdough belongs to the pantheon of food art, born of a perfect partnership between nature and human, life and life itself.

As we enter into conscious relation with the natural processes of water, air, heat, plant, microflora (bacteria, yeast), we as lifeforms enjoy a unique opportunity to play with life itself: observe, taste, interact, touch, reflect, feel, experiment, express… As we see engage and learn hands-on about these elemental forces, we can open a space for spiritual practice and connection to where we come from and the mysteries of life itself.

Knowledge share will include:

• The full process of making bread from beginning to end, with live visuals of the process at each stage.

• Intuitive approach, focused on key moments, without too many twists and turns that typical bread recipes require.

• Building and maintaining a healthy sourdough starter

• Knowledge of fermentation: moisture, temperature, and feeding cycles of microflora

• Working with the dough, proofing, and preparing for baking

• Bread “scoring”

• Information on helpful/necessary utensils and equipment

• Online resources

Exchange

$15-35

For scholarships please email with subject: SOURDOUGH BREAD

Facilitator

Sebastián Pérez is a New York City native of Chilean ancestry. They are a passionate educator with teaching and learning experience in mathematics, hatha yoga, qi gong, somatic movement, and music. Their journey with making bread began around 2015 in Germany after falling in love with the cheap rye bread from the supermarket down the street, better than most bread they had tried back in NYC. After trying some experiments with German flour and recipes in german, back in the US they started becoming familiar with what was available back home and tried some other bread recipes, and invested in some useful baking equipment. Fast forward to 2020, and they felt encouraged to rise to the challenge and bake bread for the whole family. This new demand had them baking around 8 loaves a week at times, and took their game to the next level. By no means claiming expert or professional status, but passionate and dedicated to this beautiful art, Sebastián looks forward to sharing what they’ve learned with new and aspiring, passionate fellow bakers.