Photo of the Week – August 31, 2011 – Hurricane Irene at the Supermarket
Either the hurricane at already passed through this supermarket by the time Joe snapped this picture, or customers gobbled up the local fruit, bypassing the bananas and grapefruits.
Quote of the Week – August 31, 2011 – Paula Deen
“You know it’s a good recipe if it starts with a stick of butter.”
- Paula Deen, Celebrity Chef
Mr. Bread, aka, Love Bread
Most parents will understand the perverse pleasure of making your kids squirm with displays of affection between spouses. I think the entertainment factor for Joe grows exponentially each time one of the girls utters “ewww” when he gives me a hug. But who knew that a simple loaf of bread, my chosen baking project for Hurricane Irene, could successfully provide us with one of the cheap thrills of parenthood.
Mr. Bread goes way back to our early married days, long before the girls were anywhere close to our life list. Mr. Bread was probably one of the first recipes I ever cooked well as a new bride. It’s the easiest bread recipe on the planet, and it comes from the first cookbook I was ever given, the original “Betty Crocker”, thanks to my wonderful friend Cristina. This bread recipe could be made by anyone who is able to use a mixer, hand or stand doesn’t really matter. You throw all of the ingredients into the mixing bowl, turn on the mixer for a few minutes, let it rise once, transfer it to a greased baking pan, allow it to rise again, and bake. It’s almost embarrassing to say how easy it is considering how legendary it is in our history as a couple.
During our first year of marriage, Joe and I lived apart since I was in my second year of graduate school in Boston, and he was working in New Jersey. Every Friday night Joe would hop into his Honda Civic wagon and make the four hour journey up to see me. And when he arrived I would prepare dinners to the best of my unskilled ability. I have no idea what those dinners were, but often this bread recipe would be part of that romantic meal. Joe liked the bread so much that he named it Mr. Bread. In hindsight, he probably liked it so much because it was a reliable bit of sustenance after his long trip, unlike my other cooking experiments.
So when I decided to make this bread for the hurricane last weekend, a recipe that had long been buried among many hundreds of other recipes, Joe and I grew nostalgic remembering those early days. And then, with a glimmer in his eyes, Joe told Louisa that you could say this was Love Bread. Oh yeah, parental embarrassment accomplished.