Pass it on

A few days ago, I opened my email to find a surprise – my dad sent me a tutorial on how to make his homemade bread.  Now, I already use his recipe to make sweet rolls for my family, but I don’t often make his bread.  He’d been asked to put together instructions on it, and I was lucky enough to be on his email list when he finished.

I was tickled.  It’s a beautiful piece of technical writing, complete with pictures and explanations.  I loved it!

I told my kids how, growing up, Dad would often pull the bread out of the machine and leave it, for just a few minutes, to cool.  While it sat there, someone else would come in, chop off the heel, spread it with butter and honey, and make off with it.  Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was someone else.  Always, Dad would come back and exclaim, “Who stole my heel?!”  And then he would smile … because it was a compliment to his bread that we liked it so much.

So, this week I had S’s preschool group at my house.  We had the letter “R”.  In an effort to redeem myself from serving marshmallows and M&Ms for “M” day a few weeks ago, I decided to make rolls for snack.

If I had thought about it earlier, I’d have taken a picture of the whole tray, but I didn’t, so here’s what was left after dinner that first night.

First, as soon as the rolls were out of the oven, I snagged the corner roll, cut it in half, spread it with butter and honey, and took it into the living room. 

Now, the men I know, when they are sitting in front of a computer, they become oblivious to the world around them.  The house could explode, and as long as the computer and their chair remained in place, they wouldn’t notice. 

I put the roll in front of his mouth, and he took a bite.  He chewed.  Suddenly he turned his head, looked at me, and said, “Oh my goodness, that is SO good!”

Good enough to distract my husband from the computer – that’s saying something.

Then, at dinner, I’d taken a roll, cut it in half, and spread one piece of it with jam.  I got distracted by one of the girls asking for milk, and when I looked back at my plate, J had reached over and snatched my roll right off my plate!

He took a bite, then smiled at me and said, “Mine!”

Maybe one day, when my kids are grown up with families of their own, I’ll send them a tutorial on how to make bread, and their own kids will steal the heels. 

(Even as I wrote this post, I fed the kids rolls for bedtime snack.  I thought I’d get to eat the extra half of roll, but J snatched it away from me again.  )