Monday 23 March 2020

Give Us This Day...

          ...Our Daily Bread
I learned the Lord's Prayer as a very small child. I still prefer to say the 'old' version with Thee's and Thou's, because after six decades, it is hard to change. In this Covidian Craziness, it is a comfort to return to the familiar phrases. When I do not understand what is happening, or know what to say, I can pray these words which Jesus taught his friends. Bread is an important part of my diet. When I visited the Titanic Exhibition in Belfast with Mags, I was amazed to learn that the men who built that mighty ship existed on a diet which was mostly bread and butter washed down with tea. [There wasn't much money for fresh veg or quality proteins] 
I have bread flour in the cupboard, so when we finsihed the old loaf at the weekend, I was able to make a fresh one in the breadmaker. I mentioned 2 weeks ago that i'd just sold my £5 Cornerstones Breadmaker on FB Marketplace. Before I posted the sale, I made two loaves in the two machines, side by side. Here are the results...
On the left, the newer CS machine, on the right my older machine. I decided to keep the original [it has a couple of extra functions] and sell the CS one. 
I posted a picture of the machine, with its loaf - rugged crust and all! and it sold almost immediately. Brilliant, I thought
So I confidently loaded the old machine this weekend - and look what happened!
Not sure why, when everything else was just the same as before- but the top of the loaf rose like a muffin top, instead of a beautifully domed crust. It tastes wonderful, so I am not complaining.  

I posted a picture of this on FB and a number of friends have sent pictures of their breadmaker efforts - alongside comments like "I've had this machine for ages and never used it" 
I prayed for daily bread, and that is what we have received. Yes, it looks a little wonky - but the whole of life looks a little wonky right now as we enter our second week of self- isolation. 
May you keep well, and may you too have sufficient bread for your family today.

3 comments:

  1. Bread is the staff of life, isn’t it? I have been regularly baking sourdough for the weekend for the last year but now making a sandwich loaf on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes by hand but this morning I set the machine up at 6am so we will have fresh bread for sandwiches at lunchtime.
    I’m hoping not to waste the leftover sourdough so will use it for toast and for bruschetta for tomorrow’s lunch.
    Otherwise, week 2. Mum is here, we FaceTimed family yesterday and I am hoping the weather stays good to do a bit of gardening.

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  2. We've used bread machines for years now, from when I was making 4 packed lunches every day. (I remember one lunch coming home with the lollo rosso lettuce leaves rejected 'I ate the greens but left the reds').
    I'm 'shielding' myself now. So I've plenty of time to say The Lord's Prayer sitting in the garden. And he's still the 'Holy Ghost' in the Gloria. Old habits... Take care, everyone, take care

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  3. Nothing quite as good as freshly baked bread! I meant to buy yeast (I was down to my last packet of yeast which had expired, anyway), but, I forgot! However, I have three loaves of frozen bread dough in the freezer, so I could always thaw those and bake them as needed. For now, I have most of the loaf of multigrain bread that I bought before all this sheltering in place began.

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