Sourdough Cento: A Poetry + Baking Workshop Series

Limited to 25 spots | 16+
April 11th, 18th, and 25th
$5-$50 | Register Here

Throughout April, establish and/or maintain a sourdough starter while simultaneously composing a cento—AKA a patchwork poem! Sourdough starters need to be fed daily, so why not incorporate a little poetry into that ritual?

  • Classes will be held virtually through Zoom (link in the confirmation email)

  • Class Dates: April 11th, April 18th, and April 25th

  • Time: 11 am - 12:30 pm EDT

  • No baking experience needed

Every day as you feed your sourdough starter, you’ll write a line of poetry. Then at the end of the month, you’ll not only have a starter to make endless baked goods but a brand-new, one-of-a-kind poem that chronicles your experience. Mentors will help you along the way, teaching you how to care for and troubleshoot your starter while also giving you helpful prompts and ideas on what you might write about for your poems. Join a community of poets and bakers and let your imagination rise!

About your facilitators
Rani Ruado (he/they) is a poet, baker, teacher, cook, and amateur grandma. He is currently a poetry candidate in FIU’s Creative Writing MFA program. And though he has attempted making sourdough once before, his starter—named Patricia—unfortunately never became an actual loaf of bread.

Chase Simmering (she/her) has loved baking since she was old enough to crack an egg. Being raised by a chef and food entrepreneur mother who started a very successful charity that brought famous chefs to use their talents to help raise funds for local schools, Chase was lucky enough to share her dinner table occasionally with the likes of Julia Child and Jaques Pepin. Being married now to a talented cook, Chase has become the family baker and sees it as her favorite form of mediation and therapy. From the annual challenge of her daughter’s birthday cakes, which they spend weeks designing together to her love of bread making. What began as wanting to make a homemade sandwich bread option for her daughters evolved into a fun micro-bakery pop-up with her husband where they were slinging 50 loaves of sourdough and challah a week from their tiny kitchen. By no means an expert but instead someone who loves the journey of making bread and how it challenges both the left and right sides of the brain equally. Chase works full-time as Creative Director at Zak the Baker.