Give Us This Day...

Snow?! ?



It's the first snowfall of the season, and this morning we woke up to a yard that seemed magically transformed into a winter wonderland. As soon as the weather outside turns colder, I turn to warmth on the inside — homemade soup, fresh-baked bread, and similar creature comforts.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice soup, Tomato-Corn Chowder, Potato Leek.
Southwestern Winter Chili with ground turkey, black beans, red peppers and butternut squash. The colors, the flavors, the warmth...fill me in a way summer never can.

To accompany all that soupy goodness, my friend Eowyn's delicious bread recipe has become a staple in our home. Branching out over the past few weeks, I've experimented several times with a version of this amazing no-knead bread. And already this week (yes, it's Wednesday) I've baked this delectable classic white bread not once, but three times.

Scrounging for another favorite recipe yesterday, I stumbled across a favorite quote -- about both bread AND snow:

"When we eat the good bread, we are eating months of sunlight, weeks of rain and snow from the sky, richness out of the earth....It all becomes a part of us. We should be great—each of us radiant, full of music and full of stories. Able to run the way clouds do, able to dance like the snow and the rain. But nobody takes time to think that he eats all these things and that sun, rain, snow are all a part of himself."

—from Dobry by Monica Shannon

And once again I'm reminded why I love baking and eating such goodness every day. Happy winter, everybody! Here's hoping the goodness of true warmth...food, family, friends and faith...brightens your days and lifts your spirits, warming you from the inside until the very last frost melts away.