I started out my day eating a baked potato with cottage cheese and Pace hot salsa.  Breakfast of champions!  I then continued to Facebook where I watched daughter, Addi, baking Cookiepalooza.  She is so very entertaining.  I think she is unique and I am so proud that I had something to do with her creation.

Another friend, Alicia, recommended me to watch Zooey Deschanel explaining that white bread is garbage and we should be baking our own bread.  I reminisced about the time my good friend, Dave Staddon’s mom taught me and his wife, Mari, how to make Butterhorns.  She was so patient with us.  We also make homemade Whole Wheat Bread.

Two years in a row, I made Buttterhorns for my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My mother made those store-bought dinner rolls and everyone ignored my homemade bread.  I quit making homemade bread for my extended family but made them for my own little family.

Now-a-days, at the Faerber residence we don’t eat much bread.  The hubster decided years ago that white food was bad for him and refused to eat it.  I occasionally buy a loaf of whole grain oat bread and have a piece of toast for breakfast.  I keep the bread in the fridge.  (Don’t you think the smell of fresh made cinnamon toast is one of the best smells ever?)

I wish you could buy just four slices of bread at a time.  Then it wouldn’t waste away in the fridge. Or perhaps I should start baking my own bread and making little loaves and freezing the rest. I do love a warm piece of bread with real butter melting on the top.

I like shopping at Sullivan’s grocery where you can purchase just one roll or a dozen if so desired.  I do so love having a bigass burger on a fresh onion roll.  Or a meatball sub on a fresh hoagie bun.

Years ago, I wrote a story about baking bread with Dave’s mom and I want to share it today.

LEARNING TO BAKE BREAD

            We have this friend of the family, Dave, who is a Native American and he ate with us frequently when we were young.  He talked about the fresh bread his mother would make and suggested that I should learn to make bread someday.

            Dave spent two years in Japan studying Martial Arts and came home to America with his Japanese wife.  Dave’s mother, Agnes, called me one day before Thanksgiving.  She invited me over for a Saturday and asked me to bring a large mixing bowl, a stick of real butter, a bag of flour and some baking sheets.

            Agnes, Dave’s wife and I spent the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and she taught us how to make Butterhorns and whole wheat bread.  She stressed the importance of the temperature of the yeast, the strength of kneading the bread and the love we were putting into the creation for our families to enjoy.

            My baby, Addi, spent the day also and banged on Agnes’ pots and pans with wooden spoons and got flour all over the kitchen.  We girls shared cooking stores and Agnes told us stories of when Dave was little and how much he enjoyed it when she baked bread.  Agnes shared stories of when she was little and lived on the Ojibway Indian Reservation in Canada.  We had such fun and learned so much about her and baking bread.

            Almost twenty years later I still take the time to prepare Butterhorns for my family for Thanksgiving dinner.  My memory of that day and all that Agnes taught me has remained with me.  I feel she shares Thanksgiving with us each year.

Peace be with you.