Once thought impossible to bake at home, sourdough bread has been virtually inaccessible to its many thousands of fans all over the United States. But now Seattle restaurateur Timothy Firnstahl makes sourdough baking easy, even irresistible. In the course of reviving an 1890s tavern, Jake O'Shaughnessey's in Seattle, Firnstahl researched the baking methods of the original tavern and the uses of sourdough all over the world. Now he includes in this book every kind of sourdough baking imaginable, including cookies, pancakes, waffles, cakes, pies, pastries, and breads like: Brown Biscuit, Johnnycake, Billycan, Peasant Black, Sourcream Heb - and the classic of them all, San Francisco Sourdough French Bread. Prefaced by a history of sourdough baking, with emphasis on the Gold Rush eras in California and Alaska, this book is a warm invitation to enjoyment of an ancient baking art. It is invaluable for sourdough baking at home - and the baked goods that result are incomparably fine.