hahaha... Google 20 inch oven mitts. You should find them around. Alternatively, look into restaurant or baker's supply distributors/stores. I bet you'll find something.
Thank you! I'll do that!
About Herman... that must be a regional thing. I was talking to another lady about my experiment, and she talked about how she used to have a Herman. She also said Herman was made with milk, and that she had a circle of friends who shared Herman, much like you'd do with an Amish Friendship bread.
One person would feed and care for Herman to get as much as they needed for their bread. They'd bake their bread, and pass Herman on to the next person. The next person would do the same. With 4 or 5 folks in the circle, by the time Herman came back around to the first person, they were ready to bake again. This way, nobody had to discard any Herman down the drain. I thought that was pretty clever.
But it does give new meaning to the phrases; "Sharing Herman", "I need Herman", "I need to feed Herman", "I'm warming up Herman"... lol
LOL! I've heard of sharing starter too. I think it was done especially in the war/depression era b/c people were so limited on things. It just didn't make sense to feed Herman if you weren't going to be able to use it soon enough.
You made me really curious as to why some call them "Herman" and others don't. So I did a little Googling and found this story:
http://soursaltybittersweet.com/content/sourdough-diaries-beginning%E2%80%94introducing-ezekiel-and-how-and-why-make-sourdough-starterIt seems that I was kind of right when I decided it was some kind of pet that you were feeding, but it seems that some people give their own starters their own names. Sort of weird and cool all at the same time.