You won’t need a starter for this conversation, as Pavel Samsonov joins us to share his passion for baking sourdough bread. Like many others, he started experimenting with sourdough during the pandemic, but has continued baking since then, diving deep into the science. Pavel recounts some humorous missteps, including an overheated sourdough starter that caused a minor fire in his workspace. He also discusses the satisfaction of giving homemade bread as gifts, and how the tactile, hands-on nature of baking offers a refreshing change from his work at a computer. Finally, he reflects on how baking connects him to a community of artisans, even if he's "just messing around in his kitchen”.

Guest Bio

Pavel Samsonov (he/him) is a New York-based designer exploring the applications of design as a decision-making framework. Pavel has been a product manager, UXer, design strategist, and user researcher across various industries, and currently builds a design practice at AWS. Off the clock, Pavel uses articles and speaking engagements as an opportunity to explore new ideas and help designers envision better ways of working. Pavel likes to frame design as a job that works on calendar time, not clock time - so the necessity of downtime is a topic near and dear to his heart.

Links

Three-Stage 80% Sourdough Rye Bread recipe: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/keyword/3stage-detmolder-rye

Beginner Sourdough Starter recipe: https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2019/03/beginner-sourdough-starter-recipe/

Pavel’s Medium page: spavel.medium.com

Pavel’s website: pavelsamsonov.com

Pavel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavel-samsonov-44ba2833/

Pavel on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/spavel.bsky.social

Credits

Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.