My first try to use a starter to bake a sourdough bread was Mountaindog's Cherry Pecan Pain au Levain which was so dense and almost unedible. I was sure something was not right with my starter. So I requested MD post some pictures of his levains for me for guidance, which he did with nice illustrations. I followed that to feed my starter for over a week and tried to build a levain with bubbles that would match those of MD's and finally I thought my starter was ripe enough to make breads, I tried the Country French Bread (Thom Leonard's), also from MD's blog :
The crumb was still a little dense because I overlooked the part on folding. So a week later I had another try and followed the recipe as closely as possible and this was a better one :
I was so happy that my starter finally is working and the following one is Richard Bertinet's sourdough bread with a small touch of spelt flour :
Honestly, I like the flavour of the Country French Bread more. My next exercise will be the Pecan Cranberry Pain au Levain, again.
I would like to thank everybody on this site for their generosity of sharing techniques, experiences, recipes, etc. and a special thanks to Mountaindog's encouragement!