Forged by Bread: Palisadians Cultivate New Friendships Through Sourdough Meetup

By GABRIELLA BOCK | Contributing Writer

It can be said that baking a quality loaf of sourdough is like making new friends: it takes time, requires a great deal of patience and, most importantly, too much salt will almost always end in bitterness.

Fortunately, bread has been helping humans create new relationships for quite awhile now—the word companion, derived from the Latin phrase com panis, or “with bread,” says it all: bread is the ultimate amalgamator.

In Pacific Palisades, such new friendships can be found at the meetings of the recently formed Pali Sourdough Society, a local monthly meetup group dedicated to all things sourdough.

The idea for the group came out of pure necessity: Local resident Lee Ann Daly had a hankering for homemade sourdough bread but didn’t have any starter on hand.

Unlike other breads, sourdough’s tangy flavor is created by the fermentation of yeast and lactobacillus, a process that takes a week of diligent flour “feeding” to accomplish.

Recalling girlhood memories of when her own mother would borrow sourdough starter from friendly neighbors, Daly created a post on NextDoor in hopes of finding a kind neighbor who would be willing to spare a lump of starter.

“I was raised in an incredibly open-door kind of neighborhood, and people shared their food-ways with each other,” Daly told the Palisadian-Post.

What Daly didn’t expect, however, was that her quest for starter would not only lead her to invite more than 25 strangers into her kitchen, but that it would also give rise to a brand-new community of friends from all walks of life.

“We had people show up who were 30 years old and others who were as old as 85,” she said. “Some were bakers or cooks, others had never made sourdough before.”

Others shared starter with origins older than the moon landing.

“One attendee brought in starter that they had brought back from their honeymoon in San Francisco,” Daly revealed. “They were married in 1965.”

Also hailing from the City by the Bay was Palisadian newcomer Dave Ransone, a seasoned private chef who began baking bread as part of a dare.

“My wife and I had tasted this really great bread and she sort of playfully challenged me like, ‘I bet you couldn’t make bread this good,’” he revealed with a laugh.

That challenge would open up a world of curiosity for Ransone, leading him to taking an internship at the San Francisco Baking Institute and later earning a spot at acclaimed pastry chef Belinda Leong’s flagship b. Patisserie.

“I find bread—especially sourdough bread—so fascinating,” Ransone explained to the Post. “The way that it literally comes alive from the molds in the environment, which change its taste depending on where you are […] it’s such an incredible, almost divine type of thing.”

So when Ransone, who moved to the Palisades last July, came across Daly’s post on NextDoor, he was more than delighted to jump in and share his passion for baking with his new neighbors.

“Yes, we share starter and baking tips but it’s much more than that,” Ransone added. “[The meetup] is like a little haven where we can leave the outside world for awhile, where we can push politics aside and just connect as people.”

Next on her plate, Daly told the Post that she is planning to organize special guest speaker events with area bakers and perhaps even a Pali Sourdough Society field trip, or two.

“Something I’ve learned recently is that you can become civically engaged by something as simple as sharing bread with a neighbor,” Daly said. “But we may need to find a bigger kitchen.”