2 – It Started With Starter

WEBVTT

1

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like after you've hit your rock bottom?

2

Would you try to dig your way out, maybe get back to the surface?

3

This week on Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield, Tog shares their first attempt to try and

4

unfuck their life.

5

It all started with starters and led to a rather public smell event.

6

Welcome to Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield on 101.7 FM The Grack.

7

I'm Tog Chesterfield, a recently unemployed, single, and sober 42-year-old trying to pick

8

up the pieces and unfuck my life after I hit rock bottom.

9

I'm taking you along as I try new things and attempt to embrace life, no matter what happens

10

along the way.

11

Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield.

12

So welcome to the show.

13

It's now 5.01 PM and I'll be with you here for your commute, or while you prepare your

14

dinner, or while you watch your kid play chess at a grade three competition that they're

15

definitely going to lose.

16

Anyways, I'm your uninvited guest for this evening.

17

Tonight I'll be bringing you a behind-the-scenes look at the great sourdough starter incident

18

of mine.

19

It's all how I'm trying to unfuck my life doing these kinds of things to try to lift

20

my life off of rock bottom.

21

Because honestly, rock bottom is the worst.

22

Rock bottom basically looks like my couch.

23

I've owned this couch for 13 years now, I guess.

24

I got it at Crate and Barrel because they had one that had some kind of moisture barrier

25

in it.

26

I saw it advertised and I needed it for a cat I lived with back then, Kevin.

27

Kevin whizzed all over everything, so I needed that moisture barrier in my couch because

28

it included couches, his whizzing territory.

29

I went into Crate and Barrel and I told the nice person in the couch section that I wanted

30

something Kevin could pee on.

31

And she tilted her head and squinted at me really hard for a while, probably trying to

32

tell if I was serious or trying to have a laugh or something.

33

She sussed out that I was serious and that Kevin was real, and a cat, you know, Kevin

34

wasn't a roommate or something.

35

Anyways, then she pointed at one of the couches.

36

It was a couch her daughter had bought because she had really small kids and it had that

37

moisture barrier, I don't know, drop juice or something on it.

38

Yeah, my daughter got this one because she has really small kids and they're really messy.

39

I guess it might stop urine too.

40

Sold.

41

Don't you want to try sitting on it first?

42

Oh, okay.

43

Still sold.

44

So Kevin tore up one end of this couch and christened every cushion right away.

45

And then Kevin died a year later.

46

But here it is.

47

It's handling my second bout with major depression, the one that layers on top of my pretty persistent

48

one.

49

Um, but this time it's whiz-free, but it's also Kevin-free.

50

I love that end of the shredded couch when you can't see it, but I'm pointing at it.

51

And I really miss Kevin too.

52

My old flattened couch is great though, actually.

53

It's real comfortable if you just mash the crushed cushion foam just right.

54

It's perfect for depression since the seats are as wide as a twin bed.

55

Basically you can sleep all night and then come out here and ruminate all day on the

56

thing and barely move a muscle.

57

You could pee on it too, but I don't.

58

Which is good because I've had to take on another new roommate now that I'm renting

59

out my old office to help pay my mortgage because I lost my job and everything.

60

Anyways, Lance Dick, who made a guest appearance on last week's show, my old roommate now.

61

Lance left after he decided to open a saltine shop, a really fancy one in East Grackleton,

62

and he wanted to live a little bit closer to work.

63

So now it's Eaton Evergreen.

64

Eaton has taken my old office now.

65

I should get back to that sourdough story.

66

That's what we're all here for, I guess, but, uh, actually we'll be back after the

67

break with that story.

68

This is Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield.

69

So back to the show and how I'm trying to un-fuck my life.

70

I'm Tog Chesterfield.

71

So in August I took that sourdough workshop.

72

I took it online from an amazing sourdough artist called Pastel Pumpernickel.

73

Apparently that's her real name and not a foodie stage name or anything.

74

She's known as the best sourdough artist for those designs that she puts on the top loaf

75

of the bread, making these really, really decorative loaves.

76

Something about the texture of the crust and how that texture lends itself to the intricacy

77

options for the loaf design.

78

But the talent most amazing to me of Pastel's is she seems to have sorted out the best sourdough

79

starter recipe for these loaves.

80

And I had this grand idea that I could start a business selling sourdough starter.

81

It keeps growing, the starter.

82

You can feed it scraps.

83

Maybe I could make a special sourdough starter and sell it to local bakers is what I thought.

84

And I'd work with my hands and that would really help un-fuck my life.

85

That was the idea anyways.

86

At the workshop, Pastel talked about how beautiful starter can be.

87

Every sourdough starter is unique.

88

It can be active or sluggish.

89

A personality.

90

You might even make some beautiful, what I call hooch, which is clear and yellow and

91

But Pastel didn't divulge any secrets about her own starter during the workshop, which

92

was a shame.

93

I was fascinated by the sourdough starter.

94

It's alive and it grows from the organisms in the air and your environment.

95

You have to get the feeding and temperature and the humidity and water just right.

96

The starter is the most fascinating part of a loaf.

97

It lives.

98

It's alive.

99

It has history.

100

You can pass it on and you can grow it endlessly.

101

It seemed like an excellent thing to grow business around.

102

My product just keeps creating itself and it doesn't even take up a ton of space.

103

And I needed that space for my new tenants after all.

104

And maybe if I do good, I'll be able to take my office space back here in the townhouse.

105

So I don't have to be recording the radio show in my kitchen or the bedroom.

106

But after the workshop, I was inspired.

107

What if I incorporated some flavors or some kind of essence into the starter?

108

Maybe lavender or patchouli would make a loaf worthy of a student of pastel pumpernickel.

109

I looked some of the things up that you can feed it and you can do that to add nutrition

110

or flavor.

111

Things that wouldn't kill the starter.

112

Things like figs or potatoes or even beans.

113

I started feeding my test starters with a bunch of different add-ins, ideas I found from

114

the internet, of course.

115

I figured out the perfect amounts on the perfect feeding schedule.

116

And eventually, I created a sourdough starter that turns out had a pretty unique smell after

117

adding those lima beans.

118

Beans I recently got from bulk bins, 20% off your first purchase if you mention me, TOG.

119

I let the starter do all of that fermentation and I thought the scent was rather unique.

120

Very decorative smell-wise.

121

But the smell kind of took over my townhouse.

122

Hell, I couldn't even smell Kevin's pee on my couch anymore.

123

I always got a whiff of it when I sunk into a cushion because it, well, I found out that

124

that moisture barrier didn't really work too well.

125

But now the townhouse, it was all lima bean.

126

Turned out, fermentation from the starter, it smelled a lot like Kevin's whiz, actually,

127

after it got at those lima beans.

128

But my starter, it made the best loaf.

129

I even went around and got a loaf from Buttertub Bakery and a loaf from the place across the

130

street that they compete with, Butterside Up.

131

I discovered that the loaves I made with my starter were just as good as theirs, I thought.

132

So I started sending out some samples to Buttertub and Butterside Up and I also made a small

133

website to sell the starter locally.

134

I sent the starter around using Grackle Run, which is the town's food delivery service

135

here, as most of you probably know.

136

And that's when the smell event started.

137

138

Tonight's top story, Grackle Run's newest delivery specialist reports that his car has

139

been taken over by the smell of what local smell experts suggest might be cat urine.

140

More after the break.

141

Yeah, I knew that smell.

142

I knew it really well.

143

And that was the same kid who picked up my first batch of starters.

144

But a ton of new orders started pouring in from the bakeries and I started to deliver

145

them myself in my Ford Transit.

146

I think the bakers didn't really complain on their end because of the superior loaves

147

that they were producing with my starter and they got into some kind of weird competition

148

with each other across the street to see who could make or sell the best loaves.

149

The bakeries kept ordering because of the loaf quality, but eventually they learned that

150

if the customer left their loaf out too long at home, the loaf would start to smell, well,

151

like Kevin's whiz.

152

153

about, well, about urine smelling bread.

154

Turns out that the Grackle Run kid with the smelly car, well, he was using his dad's,

155

the town mayor's, 93 Toyota Supra to make the deliveries.

156

And that smell lingered in the back and it reminded him of his recently passed cat, Flapjack.

157

And that's why he banned selling my starter within the town limits.

158

Oh, it's time for the weather.

159

Get ready for the weather.

160

Tonight's weather for your drive at five with Un-Fuck Your Life is brought to you by Dawn's

161

Dodge Neon dealership on the I-47.

162

Tonight Grackleton is expecting an irregular pattern from the West that is going to push

163

bands of rain across Grackleton West.

164

So if you're in Grackleton West, grab your umbrellas.

165

And that's it for the weather on your drive at five from Dawn's Dodge Neon on the I-47.

166

Turn south after the rest stop at the Neon Dodge Neon sign.

167

Oh, I know that one.

168

You just learned all about the weather.

169

Driving.

170

Driving.

171

Driving in the car.

172

Un-Fuck Your Life with Todd Chesterfield.

173

So making that smelly starter was my first pivot back from rock bottom.

174

My first attempt to really make a go at life after everything fell apart.

175

It got me off the couch, got me experimenting.

176

It got me being creative again.

177

It got me feeling creative again.

178

It also got me in the kitchen for the first time in a long time.

179

I literally started from scratch with a loaf from scratch.

180

And the whole thing, it fell flat or I was catching some bad luck or whatever.

181

But I tried at least.

182

The first thing I tried in a really long time.

183

And after the potato incident, I sure needed a reminder that I still had a restart in me.

184

Some creativity left in me and I could be useful for something.

185

Even if that something smelled like heaven.

186

Excuse me.

187

Hi, Todd.

188

It's Eaton.

189

Yeah.

190

No, I remember.

191

Oh, cool.

192

Anyways, I just have a quick question.

193

Sorry to bother you here.

194

I was just wondering, you said that I should take half the fridge.

195

I was just wondering if you meant that I take the top half, the top two shelves or the bottom

196

two shelves or the left half.

197

I don't know how many inches it is or the right half.

198

Yeah, I said left, right half.

199

Or, yeah, if you meant the top.

200

And I was just wondering, it's full of potatoes.

201

What do you want?

202

Do you want me to move the potatoes somewhere?

203

Yeah, I'll be down in a second.

204

I'll move them for you.

205

I'm just finishing the radio show.

206

Oh, thank you.

207

I have it.

208

Have a good show.

209

Have a good show.

210

Anyway, yeah, so I guess that's it for this week's Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield

211

here on 101.7 FM The Grat.

212

Stay tuned for Canning Corner at 6 for how to preserve small plums.

213

You have been listening to Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield, a Stereo Forest production.

214

This episode was written, directed, edited, produced, and all voices were by Jen DeHaan.

215

You can find all show notes and sign up to get notified about new episodes on StereoForest.com.