Робин Слоун: Sourdough

I returned to the Jay Steve Value Oven in the backyard. In my absence, the Cabrillo Street cats had made it into their lair. I shooed them away and built a fire. Cornelia came outside and watched me learn to bake again for the first time. Mainly, we sat in companionable silence. Then, one morning, after we’d pulled a couple of particularly plump loaves from the Jay Steve, I told her I was leaving.

“A lot of people have lived in that apartment,” she said, “but none of them ever fed me before you came along.”

I told her I’d leave her some of the starter so she could bake her own bread.

She narrowed her eyes. “What am I getting myself into? Is it high-maintenance? I don’t like high-maintenance.”

“Not this one,” I said. “It’s boring.”

THERE’S A CRATE HERE at the restaurant in Kreuzberg. It’s enormous, and it’s addressed to NUMBER ONE EATER. Is it a mistake? Are you inside the crate? I banged on it and called your name, but there was no reply. Then I pried it open (sorry), but there was just another box inside. This one is bright blue, with a lightning bolt.

Lois, what’s going on?

BEO! Inside that big blue box there is a refurbished Vitruvian 3 robot arm, partially disassembled, loaded with software I helped create. That robot and I have been through a lot together. I have things to teach it still.

I’m coming to Berlin.

I’m starting a new business, and I need your help. I want to learn how to use knives correctly, and which vegetables are which, and how to make my own spicy soup. (That’s not a euphemism.) (It could be a euphemism.) If you can teach me, I can teach the Vitruvian, and then those skills can be shared in a new way, thanks to my former employer. The world is going to change, I think—slowly at first, then faster than anyone expects. It’s going to be a weird time, but along the way I think I can get rich. We can get rich.

Beo, I’ll bring plenty of Fresno chilies.

I also want to learn how to bake sourdough the way you did on Clement Street. Honestly, mine was never as good. But I have one condition, and you might not like it.

Let’s not use the starter of the Mazg.

It almost caught me, Beo. And then it caught someone else. It starts out very sweetly, doesn’t it? The songs, the smiles. One night, I saw a dusting of pinprick lights. Luminous powdered sugar. That feels like a long time ago. Maybe, if you’re lucky (or if you’re you), the starter of the Mazg stays sweet. But if you’re not, it sneaks up on you—the ambition, the impatience, the hunger … I’ll tell you the whole story when I get to Berlin. There aren’t any pirates in this one, but it does feature a great rocky island, along with some very heroic goats.

This time, I’m bringing you a starter: authentic San Francisco sourdough, native citizen of Cabrillo Street. I captured it myself. I will decant it into a plastic container small enough to take through airport security. If challenged, I will claim it’s moisturizer.

In Berlin, it will grow.

It will make no faces and sing no songs, but I guarantee you, it will do its part. And, Beo, working there with you, I will set myself, at last, to the task of learning mine.

ALSO BY ROBIN SLOAN

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

Ajax Penumbra 1969

A Note About the Author

Robin Sloan is the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore . He grew up in Michigan and now splits his time between the Bay Area and the internet. You can sign up for email updates here.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Map

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Number One Eater

The Slurry Table

The Clement Street Starter

Spartan Stix

The Lois Club

Jesus Christ in an English Muffin

Sharing the Miracle

Chef Kate

The Jay Steve Value Oven

The Problem was Ongoing

A Catalog of Phenomena

The Lois Club (Continued)

The Greatest of all The Markets

The Pantheon

Alameda

Pink Light

The Faustofen

Refurb

Cathedrals

This New Darkness

The Eater’s Archive

The Lois Club (Continued)

The Hub, the Heart

Boonville

The Egg Problem

Elephants’ Armpits

A Long-Awaited Announcement

Quitting

The Novice’s Grace

Deflation

Agrippa

Agrippa (Continued)

The Fall of Camelot

Tend Your Garden

Hunger

The Slurry Factory

The Island of the Mazg

The Lois Club (Concluded)

Mr. Marrow

The Beginning

Also by Robin Sloan

A Note About the Author

Copyright

MCD

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2017 by Robin Sloan

Map copyright © 2017 by Jeffrey L. Ward

All rights reserved

First edition, 2017

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sloan, Robin, 1979– author.

Title: Sourdough / Robin Sloan.

Description: First edition. | New York: MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016059400 | ISBN 9780374203108 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780374716431 (e-book)

Classification: LCC PS3619.L6278 S67 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059400

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