Bread and flour EVERYWHERE here in the Arizona Meyer homes
Launch Number One
Doesn’t this loaf of bread I baked look like I was trying to fuse the Rockies with the Appalachians? This first launch was sped over to Ken and Judy, an aunt and uncle who recently moved (from somewhere nearish to the Appalachians) into a new home here in the Arid Zone (which happens to be kinda close to the Rockies! No accidents in bread baking, I always say :)).
Launch Number Two
My four year-old was playing hide and seek and got accidentally jetted into a jumping cholla. If you know the desert around here, you know this was not the greatest way to sign out the year. We’re hopeful that 2010 will be jumping-cholla free! Here he is contemplating the cactus the day after the event.
Launch Number Three
There are many bread traditions that usher out the Old and in the New. In Greece they have vasilopita–a lemon-flavored yeast bread with a hidden coin, baked in honor of Saint Basil. In Scotland, there’s an assortment of bread items that might be baked: oatcakes, scones, shortbread and three-cornered biscuits. In Poland, there’s a tradition of godparents making bread in various shapes, such as rings, crosses, rabbits and other animals. But my favorite New Year bread tradition comes from Ireland, where they take leftover Christmas bread or cake outside and bang it against the door and walls of the house while saying a prayer for a hunger-free year. While it took a bit of coaxing to get my oldest sister-in-law and her family out of the house for this interesting custom, once the first piece of bread was launched, it livened up the party considerably!
(And we had the perfect loaf for launching… I over-proofed two loaves and we couldn’t get them off the tray. We scooped them with spatulas onto the baking stone and the two jacos merged, ending up looking like a giant mushroom. The mishaped, tossed and dirtied bread evidently didn’t keep it from being edible…)
Launch Number Four, Five, and Six
Three new bakers. Better to teach a woman to bake than give her a loaf of ciabatta. This has been bread lesson week 🙂 Two sister-in-laws and my daughter have been fiddling with flour. All their efforts have been AMAZING!
Launch Number Seven
Okay–had to end this with a blast. We launched a rocket!
What about you? What sorts traditions launched you into this new year?
The Woman and the Wheat 