`SIMPLY SOURDOUGH’ TEMPTATONS…Meet sourdough baker Satyashree Gandham, she is turning a passion into a profession, baking only sourdough breads and other goodies. Sourdough is considered superior food for the palate and gut, go for it if you can!

BY TARA NARAYAN

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! – A variety food column

TO move on here, it’s been an exhausting Carnaval and even more exhausting Goa legislative assembly elections. Post-covid life has returned to somewhat more tranquil. Hey, I met a woman called Satyashree who waxed lyrical over sourdough breads and she makes a whole range of them with passion, marketing them in a café called Simply Sourdough. I tumbled upon this little cosy café by fluke and after saying an impromptu hello to her am now mesmerized by her creative repertoire in sourdough breads, wheat as well as some amazing mixed millet breads which were on display in a glass cabinet.
These are artisanal breads, she tells me, to justify the pricing on the higher side, “My breads are made only with flour and water (sourdough). We do not use any additives or emulsifiers or preservatives or even commercial yeast. We do not even use maida except to flour the surface of our tables. All our breads go through a very slow natural fermentation over three days that gives them the signature mild sour taste and makes them naturally nutritious…”
Everything these days is sold online but Satya tells me she also welcomes anyone to her café to taste her sourdoughs! Her menu of breads and related stuff is grows longer and longer by the day…vegan classic sourdough bread is priced at Rs150 per medium-size loaf, then she’s got whole wheat, multigrain multispeed, classic baguettes, cinnamon raisin, focaccia, garlic and scallion, rye sourdough (most expensive at Rs500)…there are sourdough stuffed loaves — olive and cheese, garlic and cheese, ham and cheese.
Then she’s got gluten free vegan loaves, gluten free sprouted quinoa , millet sourdough, seeded crackers, and last but not least of all the most amazing I’ve seen to date…sourdough breads made with freshly squeezed juice of vegetables/fruit instead of water, for example tomato and cracked peppercorn, carrot, cucumber with black sesame seeds, beetroot and more. Brio: brioche, sour straws, palmiers, chicken hotdogs, croissants in butter, chocolate, almond, ham and cheese.
Satya also does desserts of chocolate/glazed donuts, cinnamon/chocolate babka and Danish seasonal fruit affairs. A lot of things to take a shine to and she is also into health consciousness, she generously me taste my very first activated charcoal coated croissant – activated charcoal is good for the gut, she said, can detox your stomach! It’s that activated charcoal croissant I think that my stomach turn with twisty twinges of pain and act up in the middle of the night! But my heart didn’t pop out and I was fine later on in the day, so I decided to relax and try some more next time. Maybe may be not.

Since I think I’m gluten intolerant I’ve decided to try out some of Satyashree’s Simply Sourdough temptations. Remember sourdough breads are heavyweight breads and one may not hog on them by half a dozen slices or something like that! A slice or two, no more, and yes, if you wish you may toast and butter them on particularly obnoxious days when you feel like life is not worth living. A slice or two of lightly toasted sourdough can make life worth living.
I will start worrying seriously when food no longer interests me. But eat the right food, eat the right food, eat the right food if you want to live and even Sadhguru Jaggi says so in one of his super talks…most of the time we’re eating a gamut of Western-oriented processed junk food which is not food promoting health and energy. Our urban junk foods are destructive for mind and body, heart and soul.
Sadhguru says if we eat right we may hang on to our youth forever! At least we will not suffer in later years like so many folk do in the countries of the West age so prematurely. Eastern cultures have more sensibility when it comes to what we should and should not put in our mouth. Right you are, Sir! Yes, we should shun most of the commercial foods of our times more and more, or at least go easy on them.
Café Simply Sourdough is located at Shop No 19 ground floor down the side lane of Models Millennium Vista (next to Salmon Fresh) at Caranzalem. Enjoy.