Hi, I’m Parker Cook, owner and baker at Basil & Bloom. My love for cooking started early—coming home from school, I’d pretend to be on Food Network while frying up a grilled cheese and then enjoy the grilled cheese while watching Good Eats. As a young adult living in Italy, I turned to Italian cookbooks to learn how to speak the language, using food as my way to connect with both the culture and my love of cooking. That passion expanded into food science, leading me to minor in the culinary arts before working as a research and development chef for 5 years.

I didn’t always love baking as much as I do today. After Ken Forkish’s seminal Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast was published, my perception of baking changed. My scientific background made baking “click” for me and after baking loaf after loaf using commercial yeast, I made my own sourdough starter and never looked back.

Today, I’m here to help you on your own sourdough journey. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to perfect your technique, I offer tutorials and tips to make the process approachable and fun, along with fresh and dehydrated sourdough starters to help you ease into your new hobby. Every journey starts with a first step and you being here means you’re starting on the right foot.