Sports & Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, September 18, 2015 — 5A
“My pizza is built on …”
I’m sitting in a dim booth on the
second floor of the Jolly Pumpkin
Cafe & Brewery on Main Street.
Maggie Long, chef and managing
partner,
sits
across from me.
She’s short and
sinewy,
with
cropped
hair
and an oven-
baked
face.
As she starts
this
sentence,
I try to guess
what
she’ll
finish
with.
The
granite
oven? Local produce? Some secret
ingredient?
“Community.”
A community of surviving,
thriving
bacteria
and
yeasts.
Jolly Pumpkin pizza is baked on
a sourdough crust, made with a
starter that could be 130 years old,
have traveled thousands of miles
and changed hands several times.
How is this possible?
Sourdough
was
the
first
leavened
bread,
developed
thousands
of
years
ago
in
Mesopotamia.
Bakers
would
leave dough to sit overnight, and
it would pick up ambient yeasts
and bacteria. These microbes
would digest the natural sugars
in the dough, converting them
into carbon dioxide, which made
the dough rise, and acids, which
flavored the dough and prevented
spoilage. Today, even though yeast
is commercially available, many
bakers prefer the distinctive tang
and chew that lactic-acid bacteria
provide (this process is also what
gives pickles and yogurt their
flavor). Instead of letting every
batch of dough sit out overnight,
they have a starter — a mixture of
flour and water that collects and
incubates wild yeasts and bacteria,
and is then added to the fresh
dough before baking. As long as the
microbes are fed fresh water and
flour every day, they’ll survive and
reproduce indefinitely, developing
new, deeper flavors as time passes.
Sourdough is not traditionally
used for pizza crust. But one day,
years ago, Long was in Berkeley,
California, and she came upon
The Cheeseboard Collective, a
worker-owned cooperative that
runs a bakery, cheese shop and
pizzeria. Hungry and intrigued,
she stopped for a slice.
“It was the most gorgeous pizza
crust I’d ever seen,” she says, still
enthralled. “it had a shine to it, a
chew, and this flavor that I can’t
really explain,”
Long
inquired
about
this
magisterial crust, and learned that
it was made using sourdough from
their bakery. In early 2009, as she
was planning to open The Jolly
Pumpkin, she knew sourdough
pizza had to be on the menu. She
began frequenting the Ann Arbor
Farmer’s Market, hoping to make
connections with local farmers
and artisans. She struck up a
conversation with John Savanna
of Mill Pond Bakery in nearby
Chelsea, who sold his sourdough
bread at the Saturday market.
Long was just looking for tips on
how to make her own sourdough.
But Savanna took a liking to her
and the nascent restaurant. One
day, in late June, he handed her a
mason jar of his sourdough starter,
the starter he’d been using since he
opened Mill Pond in the early ‘80s.
But the starter was even even older
than that.
“(My
father)
acquired
the
sourdough
starter
from
a
colleague of his in California in the
late seventies in the San Francisco
area,” his son Steve Savanna wrote
to me in an e-mail. “At that time
the sourdough culture dated back
over 100 years and originated in
France.”
Steve, who now helps run
the bakery, recalls his father’s
obsessive
devotion
to
this
delicate treasure. One time, while
vacationing in Northern Michigan,
John drove all the way back to
Chelsea to personally feed the
starter. It may sound a bit much,
but the longevity of a sourdough
starter is only potential — without
regular feeding, it will die, and,
though it can be coaxed back to
life, the flavor won’t be the same.
John Savanna must have seen
something in Maggie Long. And
he saw right. In the six years since
they’ve opened, Long’s cache of
starter has never perished.
“This is one of the things in this
restaurant that we baby to death,”
Long tells me back at our booth.
“It sounds really stupid to do that,
but it’s a piece of us, and a piece of
somebody else.”
At Jolly Pumpkin, they feed
the starter twice a day. Before
every feeding, half of it is thrown
away — otherwise, the starter
would grow exponentially. Long
didn’t realize this back in 2009,
or was just unwilling to waste any
of Savanna’s gift. After a month,
the mason jar couldn’t contain
the starter. Neither could a single
five-gallon bucket. It took five of
them for Long to realize that she
had to throw some out. Now, they
have around four gallons, and
mix a gallon of it every day with
five times as much fresh dough,
and let it ferment overnight. After
years of residing in this basement,
the starter has taken in the local
microbes, making it unique to this
location.
“May I see it?” I ask Long,
expecting the answer to be a firm
“No.”
She springs up from her seat,
and leads me to the basement prep
kitchen, cautioning me to mind the
recently mopped stairs. The air is
damp and cool and ripe-smelling,
like a forest after a storm.
I couldn’t tell at first what the
starter was. After hearing the 25
gallon saga, I’d envisioned some
captive beast, oozing through
its chains and howling for more
flour. Instead, the starter resides
in a battered white bucket, next to
containers of fermenting lemons
and kimchi. It resembles thick
pancake batter, with lazy bubbles
pushing their way to the surface
every few seconds. I lean my face
closer, picking up its sour, starchy,
bottom-of-a-beer-bottle
smell.
Long invites me to dip a finger in
and have a taste. It’s no cookie-
dough, to be sure, but thick and
appealingly tangy, like Greek
yogurt.
As I’m leaving, Long hands me
a takeout-soup container of starter.
I gingerly accept it, as if it might
crumble in my hands.
“Make your own bread,” she
encourages. “But I’d research how
to feed starter if I were you.”
At home, I place the container
on top of my fridge, pledging to
go buy flour within the hour.
But that hour stretches into two,
then three, then a whole night. I
stumble into the kitchen the next
morning and take a peek.
It’s gruesome. The starter
has risen up, popped the lid off
and cascaded down the sides of
the container, hardening like
toothpaste. There are no more
bubbles, and it now just smells
like flour, which I guess means
it smells like death. I scrape
what I can into a new container
and place it in the fridge, hoping
to revive it the next day.
Meanwhile, in the basement
kitchen, someone feeds the
starter, keeping the community
going.
Buonomo’s pizza is built
on you, the readers. To grab a
slice of the Buonomo pie, email
gbuonomo@umich.edu.
FOOD COLUMN
The secret to Jolly
Pumpkin’s success
GIANCARLO
BUONOMO
Culture shift bolsters
Michigan in offseason
Compher traded
from Buffalo
to Colorado in
offseason deal
By JASON RUBINSTEIN
Daily Sports Editor
The college hockey season is
longer than most other sports.
Spanning from the beginning
of October to the end of April,
there is plenty of time for
players to get fed up with one
another.
But that’s what the Michigan
hockey team can’t afford if it
is going to end its three-year
drought
without
an
NCAA
Tournament appearance.
Last season, and the two years
before, multiple players said
the team culture wasn’t strong
enough. Cliques formed, and
not everyone had each other’s
back. But this summer, when
junior forward JT Compher
and senior forwards Boo Nieves
and Justin Selman earned roles
as the team’s captains, they
immediately set out to create a
new team culture.
“In my first few years, there
were some cliques and some
guys weren’t friendly enough,
I believe,” Nieves said. “What
Selman, JT and I have tried
to do is take some guys you
normally wouldn’t to lunch,
that kind of thing.”
And according to sophomore
defenseman Cutler Martin, the
new culture is noticeable.
“Guys are getting along really
well,” Martin said. “I could call
any one of my teammates to
go have breakfast, and that’s a
good feeling. You can’t always
do that. You can talk to anyone
about anything.
“The season is super long,
and it’s important from a day-
to-day perspective to be friends,
because you want to have a good
relationship together and (be)
united in the same cause.”
But
how
exactly
does
off-ice
chemistry
translate
to
on-ice results?
According
to
Nieves,
a
stronger
friendship
leads
to
greater trust,
so
when
Michigan is down late in the
third period, each player knows
he can lean on another.
“When you’re struggling, you
can always look to a friend, not
just a teammate,” Nieves said.
Junior forward Tyler Motte
agreed with Nieves, and added
that the pace of practice has
been
outstanding.
Michigan
just hopes that it will translate
into wins.
COLORADO
COMPHER:
JT Compher had a strange
offseason.
He
was
traded
from the Buffalo Sabres to the
Colorado
Avalanche
before
he even suited up for an NHL
game.
The junior captain was part
of the Ryan O’Reilly blockbuster
trade. When Buffalo drafted
Compher
in
2013,
he
was
expected to be a centerpiece of
the future. That’s why it was a
strange feeling for Compher
when he heard the news.
“It was a weird experience,”
Compher
said.
“It’s
much
different and easier when you’re
20 years old and in college. It’s
not like I was living (in Buffalo)
with a family or anything like
that.
“It does change my future a
little, but right now it doesn’t
change too much. I just went
to Colorado for prospects camp
and just tried
to
get
the
know the staff
there.”
As
an
added bonus,
Compher
said,
the
Avalanche’s
director
of
player
development
is a Michigan
alum. That familiarity helped
him ease into Denver.
NHL CAMPS: Last summer,
just a few Wolverines attended
the
team’s
NHL
prospect
development camps. According
to Motte, players wanted to stay
in Ann Arbor and work with
each other in Michigan instead
of travel to camps.
This past summer, though,
the game plan changed, and
15 Wolverines attended NHL
development camps.
“Last summer, most guys
thought it was best for them to
stick around and focus on what
was going on in Ann Arbor,”
Motte said. “But this summer,
guys are getting closer to
making the jump and want to
become comfortable with their
team.”
Not
only
that,
Motte
reiterated, but there are “huge
positives” to attending these
camps.
“You compete against bigger,
stronger, older guys,” he said.
“That never hurts.”
Hard work earns Ellis
captaincy as a senior
By LELAND MITCHINSON
Daily Sports Writer
Even as a fifth-year senior
defender, it took Mackenzie Ellis
until last Friday to score her first
career goal.
With
the
Michigan
field
hockey team down by a goal
against Vermont, Ellis smacked
in the equalizer off a corner
rebound in the 10th minute,
allowing the Wolverines to pull
ahead for a 3-1 win.
“You
know,
as
a
really
important
defender
on
our
team, she doesn’t get very many
opportunities to score goals,”
said Michigan coach Marcia
Pankratz.
“When
she
got
her opportunity, she stuck it,
capitalized on it and scored an
important goal for us, so that was
fun.
“(It) put a smile on my face.
I think she enjoyed it and liked
it and would like to score a few
more.”
But Ellis’ journey toward that
goal and a starting role on the
team has been a bumpy one.
As a freshman, Ellis was a
walk-on and redshirted her first
year. She didn’t see much action
as a redshirt freshman the next
year, either, appearing in fewer
than half the Wolverines’ games.
Things began to pick up for
Ellis during her third year of
eligibility, when she earned a
starting spot
on the defense
in
18
total
games. Now in
her fifth year
on
campus,
she has earned
the position of
team captain
and leads a
defensive
unit that has
surrendered
just three goals through six
games.
Her early struggles, however,
are what allowed her to become
the leader she is now.
“I think it makes me a lot more
able to relate to a lot of different
players,” Ellis said. “I’m not a
player that came in and started
their freshman year and never sat
a game in their life, so I think that
if players are struggling, it makes
me a lot more able to sit down with
them and offer them advice.”
Added Pankratz: “I think
Mackenzie is a
wonderful role
model for our
team. She’s been
a good captain,
and I think the
younger players
can look up to
her as she leads
by example and
learn that there
is always a path
for
everybody
on the team, and to see her as a
wonderful example that hard
work pays off.”
Not only has Ellis become a
proven leader on the field, she has
also taken that leadership into the
classroom and community. She
earned the Rachael Townsend
Community
Service
Award
two years ago and is using her
fifth year to complete a master’s
degree in management through
the Ross School of Business.
“I think that as a student-
athlete, at Michigan especially,
we are given so much,” Ellis
said.
“We
have
incredible
opportunities, and we’re taken
care of and we’re looked up
to by people. I think it’s really
important to have perspective
and to be able to give back to the
community.”
In addition to her work in
the community, Ellis remains
dedicated to improving her game
for the remainder of her final
year. Ellis may be a defensive-
minded captain, and it may have
taken her five years to hit the
back of the net, but she has finally
shown she is capable of doing
whatever it takes to lead her team
to victory.
ICE HOCKEY
“When you’re
struggling, you
can always look
to a friend.”
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Fifth-year senior Mackenzie Ellis has worked her way up to become a captain.
Freshmen make impact
By RILEY NELSON
Daily Sports Writer
For most teams, the beginning
of a new season comes with
a mixture of expectation and
uncertainty.
But for the Michigan women’s
soccer team, excitement seems to
be the dominant feeling.
After falling just shy of making
the NCAA Tournament last
season, the team graduated five
seniors, but only one of those
players consistently started, and
100 percent of the team’s goal
scoring returned.
While veteran players are
stepping up and taking on bigger
roles, another contributing factor
to the team’s current 5-3 record
is its six freshmen, who have
already made their presence felt.
All of the first-years, save
for forward Kelly Sweeney –
who tore her anterior cruciate
ligament over the summer – have
seen playing time. Midfielder
Abby Kastroll, defender Sura
Yekka and forward Reilly Martin
have started.
“As a class, they’re a fantastic
group,” Ryan said. “For those
three, the sky’s the limit in
potential. It’s very likely you’re
going to see all three of them
in the starting lineup as they
continue to grow and develop.”
Yekka, an outside back on
the Canadian National Team,
has steadily filled that defensive
position,
something
Ryan
struggled to do last year.
Despite
being
sidelined,
Sweeney also played on the
international
circuit
this
summer. A member of the U.S.
U-20 National Team, she was
predicted to be one of the top
freshmen
in
this class.
Sweeney’s
absence has left
an
offensive
void, but it has
allowed other
players,
like
Kastroll
and
Martin, to step
up.
“(Kastroll) has been the real
surprise,” Ryan said. “I mean
she’s just relentless out there.
(She’s) leading the group in goals
… (and) has made a huge, huge
impact on her team already.
(She’s) going to be a handful for
opponents for four years.”
A native of Naples, Fla.,
Kastroll is excited to be in such a
competitive environment.
“I’ve never been around so
many people that love the game
as much as I do,” Kastroll said.
“As a freshman class, I feel like
we came in ready to play.”
Martin has also proven herself
on the field, starting in six of the
eight games. She has netted two
goals on the season, but Ryan is
certain it won’t take long before
the floodgates open.
“We’re
really
challenging
her to do more in terms of goal-
scoring production,” Ryan said.
“We need to get her scoring more
goals because she’s a fantastic
goal scorer.”
Martin is focusing on earning
her
playing
time
and
taking
every
opportunity
that comes her
way.
“I think my
biggest worry
was just trying
to get out there
on the field and earn playing
time,” Martin said. “Each day at
practice, we try to work as hard as
we can (for a spot). It’s just such an
honor being able to step onto the
field and play for Michigan.”
Ryan has spoken highly of the
final two freshmen, midfielders
Jackie
White
and
Ashley
Calcagno, saying they have a
bright future ahead of them.
As the Wolverines get ready
to begin competing in Big Ten
matches,
the
freshmen
are
focusing on the season ahead
and
continuing
to
integrate
themselves into the team.
“Our connection to the team
has come a long way,” Martin
said. “We are such a talented
team.”
WOMEN’S SOCCER
“As a class,
they’re a
fantastic group.”
“I think that
as a student-
athlete ... we are
given so much.”