November 5, 2016

I have a good friend who is a bread maker extraordinaire. Her mother was a bread maker. Susan used to make bread every Monday for her family when she had children at home. Her oldest daughter got emotional once when she talked about ‘bread day’ in their home. She loved her family by making bread for them.  She told me once:

“We’re not making bread, we’re making memories.” I’ve never forgotten that.

Susan has a bread recipe that is, what I consider, the perfect bread recipe. A few years ago, she shared it with me and it is our family’s favorite.

I, too, am a  bread maker. My mother was a bread maker. I also used to make bread for my family. Making bread was something I loved doing. It was also a stress reliever for me. Making bread took me into another world for a few hours. My family loved it, Ashton loved it, and I loved making it for them. The smell of bread baking in our home is a sweet, comforting memory I have of my childhood. I have a sign above my stove that says, “Cooking is Love Made Visible”. Carter bought that sign for me. He knew that’s how I loved my family.

Recently, my friends, Susan and Shevonne, opened up a little country store in St. David called, The Country Coop. A few weeks ago Susan asked if I would like to make bread for them to sell there on the weekends. I told her I would do it. But, inwardly, I was reluctant. I hadn’t made bread for a long time. I didn’t have the energy. My heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t fun anymore. But I love their little store and I felt honored to be asked by the best bread maker around to make bread for her store. There was no question what recipe I would use. I would make that amazing potato bread of hers. I love the name of her bread recipe.

She calls it, “Love Loaves”.

I told her about a problem I’ve had getting my loaves of bread to brown evenly so she brought over her mother’s loaf pans for me to try. She said, “These pans brown perfectly, every time.” When I first saw them, I was repulsed by them. They were black and scary looking. They weren’t ‘pretty’. I was reluctant to use them. And I didn’t the first weekend I made the bread. I used my pans and I had that same problem of the loaves not browning as well as I would like them to. This weekend I decided to try her mother’s pans. I made 20 loaves of bread in those pans and they turned out beautifully browned! I should have taken a picture. THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL!!

I studied those pans that I called ‘scary’. They were actually beautifully seasoned works of art! There was a story of love baked into each pan, passed down from mother to daughter.  How is it that something so beautiful could come from a pan that worn and old? Why wouldn’t my shiny, pretty pans produce a beautiful loaf of bread?

It’s the seasoning.

It has to be. The years of grease and heat and use. The layers of it all….over and over again….that don’t wash off. It is the seasoning.

Am I being seasoned? Does God have a beautiful outcome in store for me someday?

How does it happen that little white loaves of potato bread, sitting on my counter, wrapped and ready to sell can help to heal me? How does that happen? Well, it happened.

Healing comes in ways I would never expect.

I loved the making of it all. I remembered the happiness I used to find in the making. I was reminded that the perfectionist in me comes out when I make bread. Having that one perfect loaf sitting on my cooling rack thrills me. And the fact that I used those precious pans….all those years of love already baked in.

I plan to keep making that bread for The Country Coop if at all possible. If you happen to go there and if you happen to buy one of those “Love Loaves”,  remember how healing they have been for me, the love that goes into the making, and Grandma Preston’s sweetly seasoned pans. There’s a love story, and some sweet memories in every beautiful loaf.

By the way…. My word for this holiday season is LOVE. For many, many reasons. It just fits.

Thank you Susan and Shevonne. I like to believe you opened up The Coop just for me.

The Country Coop is open every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9:00 am. – 561 Lee Street on Highway 80 in St David.

Written by Faye