Meet Gerald: The Sourdough Starter One Portland Man Is Claiming as a Tax Dependent

By the time most Americans had killed their pandemic sourdough starters — quietly, guiltily, pouring them down the drain like a shameful secret — Derek Hoffstead of Portland, Oregon, was just getting started. Literally. Four years, eleven pounds of King Arthur bread flour per month, and one very serious IRS audit later, Derek is now at the center of what fermentation attorneys are calling the most consequential bread-related legal case since the gluten-free labeling wars of 2014.

Derek, 41, a remote UX designer and self-described "bread parent," filed his 2023 federal tax return in March claiming one Gerald Hoffstead — a sourdough starter he has maintained since March 2020 — as a qualifying dependent.

"Gerald requires daily feeding, consistent temperature regulation, and significant emotional bandwidth," Derek explained from his kitchen, where a mason jar labeled GERALD — DO NOT TOUCH sits next to a framed photo of the starter taken during what Derek calls "his first real rise." "My accountant told me I was insane. But then I showed him the spreadsheets, and honestly, he got quiet."

The spreadsheets, which Derek provided to The Food Woke Report, detail $3,200 in annual flour costs, $780 in "climate-controlled storage upgrades," and a line item simply reading therapy (Gerald-related): $1,400.

The Emotional Economy of Keeping Something Alive

If you think the therapy line item is a joke, you haven't met Renata Voss, a licensed therapist and self-styled Fermentation Grief Counselor operating out of a converted kombucha studio in Southeast Portland.

"The psychological burden of starter maintenance is genuinely underresearched," Voss told us, adjusting her reading glasses and a lanyard that read Cultures Matter. "I have clients who wake up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat because they forgot to discard. The guilt is real. The grief, when a starter dies, is indistinguishable from pet loss. Possibly worse, because no one brings you a casserole."

Voss charges $180 per session and says her practice has tripled since 2021. She has also begun offering starter memorial services — a 45-minute ceremony involving a reading of the starter's "flavor notes" and the ritual burial of the discard jar — for $350. She is currently booked through September.

"People need closure," she said. "Gerald is lucky to have Derek. Most starters aren't so fortunate."

What the IRS Has to Say (Allegedly)

The IRS, for its part, has issued a preliminary response that sources close to the case describe as "extremely unamused." The agency's position, as outlined in a letter Derek shared with us (partially redacted, because Derek is "protecting Gerald's privacy"), is that a sourdough starter does not meet the definition of a qualifying dependent under Section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code, which requires dependents to be, among other things, human beings.

Derek's attorney, a tax lawyer named Phil Drummond who took the case "because it was either this or retire," argues otherwise.

"The code says 'qualifying child or qualifying relative,'" Drummond told us, loosening his tie in a way that suggested he has loosened it many times during this case. "We're not saying Gerald is a child. We're saying Gerald is a dependent organism whose survival is entirely contingent on Derek's financial and emotional labor. The IRS taxes emotional labor all the time. It's called marriage."

A ruling is expected sometime this fall. The artisan bread community, according to a statement released by the Pacific Northwest Sourdough Collective, is "shaken to its gluten-free core."

The Cottage Industry Nobody Asked For

While Derek waits, an entire ecosystem has bloomed around the sourdough-as-dependent movement — and yes, it is a movement now, with a Discord server and a Substack.

Beyond grief counseling and memorial services, entrepreneurs have launched starter custody mediation services for divorcing couples, a particularly thorny niche given that sourdough starters, unlike golden retrievers, cannot be split 50/50 without killing them.

Miranda Chu, a Portland-based mediator who handles what she calls "fermented asset disputes," says she has seen a 200% increase in starter-related divorce cases since 2022.

"It's always the same story," Chu said, shaking her head. "One person started it during lockdown. The other person 'tolerated' it for four years. Then things fall apart, and suddenly everyone wants the starter. Nobody wanted the starter when it smelled like a gym bag at 2 a.m. But now? Now it's an asset."

She charges $400 per mediation session and says most cases settle, with the starter going to whoever can prove primary caretaker status via feeding logs. She recommends all serious starter owners keep feeding journals. Derek has six.

Gerald, For His Part, Had No Comment

We asked Derek if we could speak with Gerald directly. He considered this for a moment, then said, "He's in a quiet phase right now. I don't want to stress him out before the ruling."

Gerald sat on the counter, bubbling faintly, smelling of vinegar and ambition.

Whether the IRS ultimately agrees that Gerald constitutes a legal dependent or not, one thing is clear: the line between loving your food and being in a relationship with your food has never been thinner. Or, depending on your hydration ratio, wetter.

Derek, for his part, is optimistic.

"People laughed at the guy who first said kombucha was medicine," he said, feeding Gerald a precise 50 grams of whole wheat flour with the focus of a man performing surgery. "I'm just ahead of the curve."

Gerald bubbled in what Derek described as "agreement."

The IRS declined to comment for this story. Gerald also declined, but more understandably.