Submitted by Jared K. Vawter, Bakersfield, California Sourdough is not an ingredient; it is a relationship. If you care for and nurture your sourdough, it will return to you all the love and devotion a one-celled organism can give. Thirty years ago, I bought a jar of sourdough starter at St. Andrew’s Abbey fall festival in Valyermo, California. When I got home, I read the instructions for the care and feeding of sourdough that came with the jar. It said it was best to use the starter once a week, but if it couldn’t be used, to feed it with whole milk and flour. It seemed I had taken on a large responsibility. After several weeks baking loaves of bread, I expanded my ambitions and began to scour cookbooks for sourdough recipes. That is what we did before the internet. In an old Whitten family cookbook, from my wife’s paternal grandparents, …