Q: The recipe calls for whole spices, and all I have is pre-ground. How do I measure?
A: A good rule of thumb is about half the measurement of whole spices to preground. So if it calls for "1 teaspoon of whole cumin" use half a teaspoon of cumin powder.

cool! for fresh i heard it's 1/3 so like 1T fresh parsley would be 1t (1/3T dried)

SOURDOUGH STARTER
Thanks to some anonymous poster on Yahoo! Answers who posted this detailed explanation with a recipe.
Starting a sourdough starter.

The mythology of sourdough is that you are capturing yeast from the air. However, there are many reasons to believe that doesn't happen very often. When people take care to sterilize the flour and water they use to catch a culture, it fails much more often than not. When they don't sterilize, it almost always works. In short, the flour has wild yeast in it, and chances are you are providing the lactobacillus from your skin. All you need to do is encourage their growth.

Mix ¼ cup of water with ½ cup of whole grain flour. Mix the ingredients well, knead to add the lactobacillus culture, cover with plastic wrap. The mixture will be a thick mass, even a very thick mass. Congratulations, you've just mixed up a sourdough starter.

Feeding:

In processes used to start a starter, some starter is discarded. The amount of food that is added to a starter is proportional to the amount of starter you are maintaining. The growth is always a geometric progression. If you don't discard some of the starter, the amount of starter you have will grow beyond belief. The three rules of feeding a starter:

1.Sourdough starter at room temperature must be fed no less than twice a day. If you feed it less than twice a day, it will lose vitality and eventually become useless and die.
2.Each feeding of the starter should be enough to double its size.
◦Some people keep feeding the starter the same amount each time they feed it. That's like feeding a puppy ½ cup of dog food a day. Even when he's as 120 pound Great Dane. How much organisms should eat depends, in part, on their size.
◦If you keep doubling the size of your starter, in 10 days you'll have enough to fill a swimming pool. And 12 hours later, you'll have enough to fill two swimming pools. So, before you feed the starter, take half of your starter and set it aside. You may discard it, or you may save it for other projects like making biscuits, pancakes, cakes, pizza shells. But even throwing it away is less wasteful than continuing to double the size of your starter.
3.Each feeding should be equal amounts of water and flour, by weight. You can use about 2 parts of water to 3 parts of flour by volume as an approximation.

Feeding? If you have 100 grams of starter, adding 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour. To ½ cup of starter, I would add ¼ cup of water and about ½ cup of flour that has been sifted and spooned into the half cup measure. Remember, flour scooped from the sack yields heavier cups, or half cups. If your starter is too thin, you might increase that amount by a few tablespoons. It REALLY is easier to weigh your ingredients than to fret about whether you have a light or heavy cup, or to sift and spoon your flour.

Using starters:

"How will I know when my starter is ready to use?" There are two tests I use for a new starter. (1) I wouldn't use a starter that is less than one week old. Before then, chances are there are too any strange critters still in the starter. (2) I wouldn't use a starter that can't double in size between feedings.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

¾ cup water
¾ cup active whole wheat sourdough starter
2⅓ Tablespoons light olive oil
1½ Tablespoons honey
2⅔ Tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional)
2⅔ cups whole wheat flour
1¼ teaspoon salt

Pour starter into a mixing bowl. Add the water, salt, honey, and oil. Whisk together. Add the flour a cup at a time and mix; after the first cup, add the rest of the dry ingredients. Make sure the dough is well mixed, feeling it to see if the water has been incorporated through the dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for five minutes, cover the dough and let it rest for five more minutes, and then knead an additional five minutes. Try not to add too much flour. I usually add about ½ cup per loaf in the kneading process.

Put a bit of oil in the bottom of a bowl, put the smooth side of the dough onto the oil. Turn the dough so it's lightly coated with oil. Cover the bowl, and let the dough rise about 2 hours in a warm place. Punch down; let rise until doubled again, about 1 hour.

Form into a loaf, and put the loaf into a greased 4" x 8" bread pan. Let rise ½ hour. Slash the bread with a single slash down the center of the loaf and spread melted butter on the cut. Bake at 350°F. for 40 - 50 minutes until brown.