The owner of a local at-home bakery revealed how she balances an at-home business and family life on Nov. 7, taking students step-by-step through the sourdough-process and emphasizing its value, despite the challenges.

“Flour, Family, and Fermentation,” hosted by the Women’s Holistic Health Society, served as a practical guide to successfully working with sourdough and was insightful into business and family life. Students came together to be educated about sourdough while enjoying fresh baked bread, tea, and cookies, courtesy of Ahna Decker, who owns Taste and See bakery. 

Junior Emma Mohler, treasurer for the Women’s Holistic Health Club, said she and a friend discovered Decker at the farmer’s market this fall.

“We went and tried her sourdough, and we loved it, and we kept going back,” Mohler said. “We were getting a sense of what girls on campus would be interested in, and sourdough is a huge thing, thanks to social media. But what we kept hearing was that girls kept killing their sourdough.”

Decker, a mom of four, launched her at-home business almost two years ago in Jonesville. She shared her own initial apprehensions about tackling sourdough. 

“People talked about sourdough like it was a kid. You have to feed it every day, and if you don’t feed it, it’s going to get moldy,” Decker said. “I was really intimidated by the process of sourdough, so I just put it off. But in 2020, the world shut down, and I was home all the time. Life was slow, and so I thought, ‘why not try?’”

Decker said she began to enjoy not only the taste of the bread, but also the process of making sourdough. 

“I enjoyed the repetitive process of making sourdough. It’s almost therapeutic,” Decker said. “It slows you down, gets you doing something that grounds you and helps you just settle.”

When her family settled in Jonesville after her husband retired from the military, she finally started the bakery, the name of which she had determined years ago. 

“I even created an Instagram account with the name just to claim it,” Decker said. “My business name comes from Psalm 34:8, which says ‘Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.’ I’m a Christian, and what better way to make my beliefs known than to put a Bible verse right in my name?” 

Freshman Olivia Neukam said Decker’s tips were helpful.

“The efficiency you need to start a business, I thought that would be good knowledge,” Neukam said. “One of the biggest things was learning the bits of her method, how she does little things. I never knew you could use the bread pans like that. I thought you had to use a dutch oven.”

Mohler said the event successfully reflected the vision of the Women’s Holistic Health Club.

“The club exists to educate women about holistic living, but also to bring a community of like- minded people who also care about these things,” Mohler said. “I think it was good to have an event like this because so many people are brought together by food, especially sourdough.”