Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Our family celebration will be simple today. We will have potato soup and homemade bread for our main meal. We lift the traditional Martin family Lenten ban on desserts and table sugar so there will also be green Jello this evening and a sprinkle of sugar on our cereal this morning. I traditionally put a drop of green food coloring in their cereal bowls on Saint Patrick's Day morning. When the milk hits, their breakfast will turn green! Celebrations don't have to be elaborate and stressful. My children love these little expressions of tradition and culture almost as much as they love Christmas and Easter. They even call our green cereal "a feast"!
 
The story of Saint Patrick is a family favorite. He was a young man of privilege who suddenly found himself captured and enslaved. He endured hunger and cold, the loss of freedom, and maltreatment. After many years, he made his escape and found his family again. Did he hate the Irish? These people sent raiders to his homeland, took him and enslaved him. Maybe...who knows what he felt; we only know what he did. He forgave.

Regardless of his treatment, his feelings, his loss of years of the life he intended to live, he forgave the Irish people. He even came to love them. He went back to the island, risking his freedom again, and preached the gospel of Christ. They heard and believed, so much so that the Irish people were responsible for saving the literature and culture of Romanized Europe through the waves of barbarian invasion that came on the heels of the fall of the Roman Empire. If you know of Aristotle and Homer, you can thank someone wearing green today.

Saint Patrick's example helps my husband and I teach lessons about forgiveness and endurance. We can talk about how easy it would have been for Patrick to succumb to a racial hatred of the Irish and how that could have changed the entire world as we know it. If the Irish monks had not worked to rewrite and protect our precious history behind stone monastery walls we might suffer in a world without democracy, without Western Civilization, without American culture even.

This saint tells us how love can change the world or how diminished the world can be by succumbing to hate. It's a good lesson as the anti-Catholic fervor builds in our country. Forgive and endure, my children. It's likely only the beginning as these things go.

I have a confession to make

I haven't made this in six years...

About 15 years ago, a Jewish family introduced me to this bread and told me how to braid it. My first attempt met with their approval and so this beautiful bread has graced my table every Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas since before I was even married. Except the last six.

What happened was that six years ago I gave this bread as a Christmas gift to a person whose family refused to eat it because it was a Jewish bread, and she called to be sure I knew all about it. Understand that if my family was so odd as to reject Jewish bread on the day we were celebrating the birth of the most famous Jew of all, the person all Christians consider the Jewish Messiah, Christ Himself, I would have been silenced by the irony. Understand further that simple good manners would also have kept me mum. Also know that due to my weaknesses of character, I was equally outraged by both outrages. I don't know why bigotry did not trump rudeness in this instance, but apparently it didn't.

For six years it didn't. I did not even want to think about that phone call, so I didn't. Even to the point of not thinking about the bread. It was a forgiveness problem. If I had done the simplest examination of conscience shortly after hanging up the phone, my girls (six and under) would have memories of attempting to knead and braid this bread. They would have mastered the egg yolk painting of dough. My oldest girl, now six herself, would be ready to braid her own little loaf. They watched me, today, and they painted. This Easter, they will braid and mangle their own little loaves.

I must say that I am ready to forgive, now that I am aware that I hadn't. Challah once again graced our Christmas table. It was fun teaching my kids to get a nice spitty gutteral "chka" going. I don't feel very forgiving, but I have decided to forgive. I well know that forgiveness is more an act of the will than an emotion. My emotions may never quite catch up to me on this one, but if you ever read this and recognize yourself, you have been forgiven. We're good here.

I was almost Jewish before I was Catholic. I was also almost Mormon. If it hadn't been for God intervening, I don't know which I would have picked. Either way, traditions in all three have a soft spot in my heart and a place at my table.

This recipe and my humble awareness of my brand of silly is my gift to all of you...

Challah

Braided Bread

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups scalding milk (almost boiling)

1/2 cup sugar

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

2 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

5 eggs

11 cups flour

1 egg

Step 1: Combine yeast and warm water in large mixing bowl and set aside to proof.

Step 2: Scald milk, then add sugar, butter, salt, and 1/2 cup water in a medium bowl. Cool to 110 degrees (Warm to touch).

Step 3: In a small bowl, beat 5 eggs. Add to cooled milk mixture. If the yeast mixture has bubbles forming, add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture. (If the yeast has not bubbled, reproof another mixture of yeast and warm water). Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Add remaining flour until a stiff dough (not sticky) forms. Knead for 10 minutes. Lightly grease a large bowl and place the dough in it, turning to coat the bread evenly with the grease. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour).

Step 4: Punch dough, turn, cover and let rise again until doubled (about 30 minutes).

Step 5: Punch down again and divide in half. You will make two loaves. Take each half and divide into thirds (for a total of 6 pieces). Take three parts and roll them until they are about 15 inches long. Pinch the tops and braid the rolls on a large, greased cookie sheet. Tuck then ends under the loaf when finished braiding. Repeat for the other roll. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Step 6: Lightly beat the remaining egg and brush evenly over the loaves. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Bread is done with a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

If the bread is browning too fast, lightly tent with foil while cooking.

Merry Christmas!