When Life Hands You Botched Bread

Make bread pudding! Two months into my bread making resolution I have found an excellent everyday bread recipe (Marilyn's Famous Wheat Bread) that has turned out beautifully every time. I have experimented with the hamburger bun variation with some degree of success, so I decided it was time to try another variation. I settled on Cinnamon Raisin Bread. It tasted great, but there was a huge air hole down the center that would have been great for those egg in a window things, but thats not my cup of tea. Instead I cubed it and made bread pudding!

This olde-tyme dessert reminds me fondly of my great-grandmother, whom I called Nannie. Nannie and her circle of friends got together at the clubhouse for a luncheon once a month and she always took little finger sandwiches with the crust cut off. When she'd get home from her luncheon she would use the crusts to make bread pudding, "use every scrap," she'd say, "waste nothing."She was one of my primary caretakers as a child, so I credit a good deal of my frugality to her. Born in 1909 to a farm family, she was very much influenced by the Great Depression. She clipped coupons for herself and her neighbors, reused postal stamps, mended her stockings, stored cash in an Eggo box in her freezer, and rode the bus everywhere because having a car was so far out of her reach that she never bothered to get her driver's license. When she made lemonade with the fruit from her trees she would add the juice of a few oranges so that she didn't have to add as much sugar. It drove her crazy when my bangs would grow and cover my eyes and I had many crooked hair cuts done at her hand.

I have lots of fond memories of this timeless lady who taught me so much, like how to make the perfect hard boiled egg and the best egg salad you've ever had. She taught me the value of sitting down to dinner together and thanking God for His provisions. She and I often shared a dinner of turkey pot pie and apple turnovers. Always that combination, with Mocha Mix poured over the turnovers. Nannie put Mocha Mix on everything it seemed, but oddly enough I don't recall her ever drinking coffee. I remember her using old metal cups that used to hold cottage cheese as her drinking glasses. I remember the old wooden blocks, puzzles, the games we'd play, and the stories she'd read to me - the same ones my grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins played with and heard. I feel very privileged to have been so influenced by a woman who had so much appreciation for the simple things in life. The television was almost never on in her house and when it was it was to watch things like Highway to Heaven, or Little House on the Prairie, or Jeopardy.

The most important thing she taught me though was by example. She is the one who showed me what God's love looks like. Her "a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck" kind of love was indescribable. Her house and her hugs were the warmest, most comfortable place on earth. She was gentle, giving, patient, and kind. She served God cheerfully and completely. She was the greeter at her small community church for many, many years. When she could no longer stand to greet visitors and members, she sat in her wheelchair holding her LOVE box and collecting dimes as people walked in. These are all of the memories that flooded my mind last night as I ate my bread pudding, with a splash of milk on it.