It's nice to know that in a world of hyper-precision, mega-anal-retentiveness and gluten-free everything, I can still come to the Bakers' Banter (or the Bakers' Circle) and be surrounded by warm bready goodness. Sourdough is great and half the fun of baking is charting it alone. More often than not the bread will guide you and tell you what to do. This recipe looks marvelous; I'm terrible with pizza crusts, so I'll really have to try this! In the future do you think you could do anything with flavored sugars? I am a sucker for them. I have sugar jars with orange peel, vanilla beans, lavender, rosemary (rosemary sugar is amazing!) and rose petals; the sugar picks up such an interesting flavor and really improves baked goods. Besides, I'm sure I'm not the only reader with a big sugar stash. :) Just today I decided to mix pearl sugar and sparkling sugar; then pearl sugar, sparkling sugar, and cinnamon-sugar; then pearl sugar, sparkling sugar, and plain cinnamon. I've had a grand time putting about 1/4 teaspoon of any of our flavorings into some sparkling sugar, and shaking it up - peach sugar, anyone? How about cranberry? Praline? I will totally suggest to MJ she think about this - sounds like it would be right up her alley, Janey - What do YOU do with your flavored sugars? PJH

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