Bread, bond, love

A batch of freshly baked sourdough breads

Every Friday, Dr Chandini Sethi-Shah wraps up her appointments by 6 pm. It is time for the full-time surgeon to swap her doctor's lab coat for a baker's apron. Her cosy home kitchen off Pali Mala Road in Bandra always smells of freshly-baked sourdough.

First, she takes a moment to check her starter, Douce Mère, which she has nurtured since 2016. A starter is a mixture of flour and water that hosts a stable blend of beneficial bacteria and wild yeasts, which is fed continuously (twice daily) and is used to leaven bread. No one is allowed to touch it. She then preps the ingredients - flour, water, and salt - with a scientist's precision.

Doctor duo Dr Prarthana Shah and her mother Dr Chandini Sethi-Shah love baking sourdough. Pic/Kirti Surve Parade

Her daughter, doctor and integrative health coach Prarthana Shah, is her partner in crime. The duo's baking session begins in the evening and goes well into the night. Chandini preps the dough, wraps it in linen, and gently pats it into the fridge for the night, ready to go into the oven next morning.

Besides baking, Prarthana is in charge of curating the playlist - from Andrea Bocelli to Whitney Houston to Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond, and Elvis - thinking new flavours and capturing photos and videos. Most sourdoughs are dished off to friends and family, or served at dinner parties at the family's residence. Last weekend, for the first time, they held a bake sale. "We made 15 sourdough breads in two days and they were sold off in no time," says Prarthana.

Chandini learned to cook and bake from her mother, a seasoned baker in the 1970s. "Mom studied nutrition at Lady Irwin College in Delhi and was inspired by her British teachers to bake. Every birthday, I had the most delicious cakes with icing," recalls Chandini, who also fondly remembers her nani's vanilla cake.

After 10th grade, Chandini pursued her passion by enrolling in a ‘housewife' cooking course at Dadar Catering College. She continued cooking even as she studied medicine at Grant Medical College (JJ hospital). Later, she took classes with Sonjuhi Baking Academy in Juhu and completed CIA-affiliated courses at Rakhi Vaswani's cooking school in Khar. Baking became a family tradition, with Chandini and her family taking pride in hosting memorable dinner parties.

In 2016, Chandini was "bitten by the sourdough bug" after tasting a good loaf on her travels. She attended a workshop by Bengaluru-based expert Samriddhi Nayak, who now lives in Germany. She taught her the science and precision of sourdough. Over the years, the duo has attended numerous masterclasses and courses, including one by Vanessa Kimbell in the UK, where they learned about gut health and adding botanicals to their dough. Next month, they are heading to Sicily next month to study sourdough fermentation under Sara Owens at the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school.

Sourdough, says Chandini, requires focus at every stage. "You build a connection with the bread. To date, sometimes we are on the phone and miss the alarm, and we'll have a fiasco in the kitchen. Someone switches off the AC, and the resting sourdough will sulk. Sourdough doesn't like change - it easily reacts to change in season and humidity," explains Chandini, adding that sourdough is also ingredient sensitive. "Add cinnamon, and bake time slows down. Every bake needs a special calculation. There is so much excitement every time a loaf comes out. When we have to send out a batch, I tell my husband not to inform our friends until they are baked. The moment of truth is only when it comes out of the oven," she smiles.

Though a constant learner and student, Chandini has also conducted masterclasses online during the COVID-19 enforced lockdown. "One of the sessions was flatbreads of the world where we made sourdough pizza base, pita and pumpkin-shaped bread," says Chandini. She also conducted a session for the patisserie La Folie. In recent years, the mother-daughter duo has also tilled a plot of land in Alibaug to grow tomatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli and vegetables. Next week, they'll be at the farm to harvest rice.

As we take a seat at the dining table, we are spoilt for choice: Walnut and chocolate bread, cheese and jalapeno, olive and 100 per cent wheat bread, and even a quilt of focaccia with rosemary and baby tomatoes. Chandini runs a serrated knife through them with utmost care. We dunk the bread into balsamic vinegar, nibble on cheddar cheese and olives, and even pair slices with a batch of kumquats Chandni has pickled. The breads wear a crusty coat and a snug softness inside. There's pin-drop silence as everyone chews, immersed. "What did we have for breakfast," Chandini asks Prarthana, breaking the silence.

"Sourdough," her daughter replies with a smile.

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