NONFICTION  - 
    With the Theme of Making or Breaking Bread  

" I need to smell and eat this wonderful bread
again soon just to prove myself wrong. "

​                                   Photo by Weebly.com                                    

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My Husband Bakes Challah
by  Pat Skala

​Every few months, my husband Corey bakes Challah. This is not nearly as often as I would like. The hard work of mixing and kneading is done by our bread machine. Then Corey braids the dough into two loaves. The warm aroma fills the house. It’s comforting and familiar to me despite the fact that no one in my family ever baked anything.
 
When I was a child, my grandmother would go shopping downtown twice a month. She took the K-car from our San Francisco neighborhood, then the Ingleside, through the Twin Peaks tunnel to the Powell Street stop. She always treated herself to a sandwich at the lunch counter in Woolworth’s Department Store on Market Street. She would also pick up a loaf of what she called an “egg braid.” Being Catholics, we had no idea that what she was bringing home was the traditional bread shared by many Jewish families and congregations after Friday night Shabbat services.
 
My husband is Jewish and likes to make his own Challah. What he bakes these days is not the traditional Challah he grew up with in Chicago. He uses a recipe from Lynn S., a member of our congregation. She and her husband, Ray, moved to Mexico a few years ago and now we only see them when they come up to San Francisco for High Holy Days. Due to the pandemic, they zoomed in the last two years as did everyone else. I always liked them both. When they lived in the Bay Area, they would go backpacking in the Sierra and would rent llamas to carry their food and gear. I hope someday to visit them in their small village of American expats on the Sea of Cortes.
 
Lynn found her recipe on the internet. It is rather unusual in that it calls for saffron. Of all the cooking spices, saffron is the most costly by weight. Only a few strands are needed for the bread, about a quarter of a teaspoon loosely packed. In addition to giving the bread a beautiful pale orange color, it also adds a distinctive, earthy flavor. Some time ago, Corey picked up the trick of “blooming” the saffron in warm water for a few minutes. He then uses that water along with the bloomed saffron threads in his bread. The color, the texture and the small bits of saffron dispersed throughout the loaf are very appealing. 

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​Lynn’s recipe makes two loaves. Sometimes we bring one to Friday night services, where it always gets applause. Other times, he gives one to a neighbor. The second loaf is for us. If it lasts until Sunday morning, the bread makes great French toast.
 
In addition to the saffron, Corey also uses lavender honey and lemon olive oil. The original recipe from Lynn recommended trying a variety of honey flavors. Corey discovered he liked lavender honey which can be found in gourmet food shops. Then he learned how to make his own, thanks to Google. He got dried lavender flowers from Rainbow Grocery and heated the honey and the flowers together for 20 minutes. He then strained the mixture through a sieve. I was sure that once he had used up all the honey from his first batch, he would try to find lavender honey in a local shop. However, I may be wrong about this. Just yesterday I found a new stash of dried lavender flowers in the pantry.
 
Lynn’s recipe calls for simple olive oil. The lemon does add a mild citrus taste. But why bother?
 
“Too many competing flavors,” I told Corey the first time he tried the saffron-lavender-lemon combo. “How will they all blend together? Which flavor will dominate? “
 
The saffron, of course, but the hint of lemon is nice also.
 
He needs to bake his Challah again soon, though, so I can make a final determination regarding the lavender honey. I think it is getting lost in the mix. I need to smell and eat this wonderful bread again soon just to prove myself wrong.    

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​​Pat Skala is a native San Franciscan (only 3 generations) and a graduate of San Francisco State College. (Note the "C". Had she waited a year longer to graduate it would be a "U.") A retired City employee, Pat and her husband live in the house that her grandparents built in 1927. She is a gardener, a quilter and an avid jigsaw puzzle person. Although she would love to be a star on Moth Radio, she limits her storytelling to friends and family. Her stories are true and focus on what she thinks of as "angels:" people who come into our lives ever so briefly, but who give us something we need or point us in a better direction.

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