Amish Guilt Bread

About a week and a half ago I took a little jaunt up to Idaho to visit my little brother (and by little, I mean a good 8-10 inches taller than me, depending on whether or not he's wearing his cowboy boots, and outweighing me by 80 lbs... my absolutely minuscule, tiny brother). It was his daughter's first birthday, and there was no way I was missing that party.

While I was there, little brother introduced me to a phenomenon known as "Amish Friendship Bread." It is a bread that spawns from a starter mixture that only the Amish know!!! I'm pretty sure it consists of nothing more than milk, flour, sugar, and yeast. Anyway, since only the Amish know the recipe, the only way to get your hands on this starter is by receiving it from a friend... who got it from a friend... who got it from a friend... who mugged an Amish woman in Pennsylvania just so he could get the recipe. The Amish woman didn't give him the recipe, but, being Amish, invited her assailant in, fed him a loaf of bread, and sent him away with a starter and a promise to come visit the family next Easter.

So, here's the deal. If you get the starter, you have to wait 10 days before cooking it. It has to ferment. Sounds tasty, right? Sure. Anyway, you just squish the bag a few times, add some more milk, sugar, and flour on day 5 or so, and voila. You have a bunch of bread material right there.

Then comes the tricky part. You have to add more flour, sugar, and milk, divide it up into 4 portions, keep one for yourself, and then you must give 3 portions to your 3 closest friends, or else you don't have any friends, nobody loves you, and you will never get the starter back! If it does come back, you know who your friends are.

Basically, this is Amish chain mail.

Now, for those of us who only bake when we want to, because we want to, this 10 day program has a bit of a hiccup in it. And that's... well... when day 10 rolls around, you'd better hope you're in the baking mood, because there's not much wiggle room for "I don't wanna."

Day 10 hit.

I texted my little brother, asking if I had to bake the bread right then, or if it could maybe ferment for, you know, another month. He responded that I might be able to eek another couple days out of it, but that I'd really better not wait too long.

Day 12 hit.

I started feeling guilty.

I mean, I got this from my brother, and I needed to know who my friends were, because without this friendship bread, I might have to rely on emails I stopped forwarding in 1998, and those have a tendency to curse you with bleeding eye sockets and failure in love for the rest of your life if you don't send them fast enough.

Also, the dough was emitting so much gas that the Ziploc freezer bag it was in was about to explode all over my kitchen.

So, even though I was SO NOT in the baking mood tonight, I sucked up and did it.

I added the extra milk, flour, and sugar.

The directions clearly outlined the next step: "Measure out 4 separate batters.... Keep a starter for yourself and give away the other three to friends."

I snorted. "Ha. Screw that. If I give them to friends I might get one back."

So, rather than give my dearest of friends a bag of something they have to wait 10 days to eat, and can only eat after cooking it themselves, and then risk getting one back and having to do the whole thing all over again, I simply tripled the recipe and decided to make a LOT of bread. If I actually have any friends... which I will never know, since I'm not sending out any starters... I can make them think we're friends by giving them a cooked loaf of this stuff instead.

Then came the most ridiculously complicated bread recipe I could possibly have thought of attempting. Three separate trips to the store and some misread directions later, I finally had my 2 largest mixing bowls filled to the brim with dough. Oh... and let me just include... FOUR HOURS LATER. I feel that, for not being in the baking mood, that alone is quite the monumental accomplishment.

So, I baked the bread. I rid myself of the starter. I stopped the chain mail in its tracks.

"If you send this on, and it comes back to you, you will know who your true friends are. If you do not send this on to at least three friends, you will spend four hours baking bread, and then have to find homes for 3 loaves, 2 coffee cakes, and a pan of cupcakes."

That's right. The chain mail stops here.

Does anybody want some bread?

November 26th

Today I'm thankful for overcoming a personal pet peeve.

So, in Mormondom, there's this cultural thing where women are set up as "moral beacons" who are naturally, by virtue of their ovaries, filled with an innate goodness. Meanwhile men, by virtue of their Y chromosome, are inherently base.

This cultural thing has existed since the foundation of the church, when it was not just a Mormon idea, but a world-wide trend.

Even today, in secular society, we see traces of it. If a woman sleeps with 10 men in a single month, she is a ho. If a man sleeps with 10 women in a single month, he is a playa.

Now, personally, I don't subscribe to this theory that your inherent goodness is based on your chromosomes. Consequently, it has always bothered me when we have "you women are so special - it is your divine duty to be a moral beacon to the world because you are so inherently good because you're women, and men will never understand what it's like to be this good, and you were born closer to the Celestial Kingdom than men"  lessons in church.

I've even heard some special cupcakes go so far as to say that that is why more boys die as babies than girls - because babies who die go straight to heaven, so in order to have an even gender count in heaven, they need more men to die when they're still babies.

**facepalm**

Yeah... the attitude is a problem.

So, we'll have these lessons, where we're told it's our sacred duty to be moral beacons to the world, because we are women. This concept has always bothered me. Why is it our duty? Why don't the men have that same duty? We're not inherently better than them, no matter what the insecure teacher is saying, so why do they keep teaching that we're held to such a higher standard?

Today, while flipping through conference talks to prep for a visiting teaching message, I had an epiphany.

Alright, so yes. Men have the same duty - it's just taught a little differently to them. It's not "you have this duty because you are male," it's "you have this duty because you are a disciple of Christ." Encouraging and standing up for morality has and always will be a fundamental principle of Christianity.

But the thing is... as women... because of this totally unfair double standard, we have an extra tool. No matter how women got there - be it innate qualities or socially engineered inequality - the simple fact of the matter is that women have a stronger voice for morality. We need to use it, simply because it's there, and it's available for our use.

It's not about whose job it is, and it's not an excuse for men to be less than women, or a promise that women will always be held to a higher standard than men. It's a tool to be used in a very good cause. So, [to me:] stop complaining about the double standard and do the job using the tools you have. It's everybody's job, and you don't get points for worrying about the fairness of it all and who has to do more of what. You get points for how well you get the job done.


So, today I'm thankful for that epiphany. And, as an overarching theme, I'm thankful for epiphanies in general, and the ability to be instructed and learn things about life and truth.

PS: Oh, and as a side note, I've recently realized worrying about gender equality is petty. Very petty. If I need an injustice to worry about, I can focus on child abuse or human trafficking.

November 25th

Today I'm thankful that it's Carl's last day of classes before the holiday. He needs the break, and I'm more than excited for him to have the break.

Also, he'll be home more, and I can see him more.

And that is awesome. :)

November 24th

Today I'm thankful I teach the 4 year olds at church.

I know I complain about the lessons a lot - and I haven't found much about trying to grill a boring lesson into 4 year old minds to be thankful for, but I really love working with those kids.

Today was super chill. We talked about Thanksgiving and I drew on the chalkboard, and then we made "Thankful" books. After that we played with toys and stapled paper in random places just for the fun of it. This is the kind of day I love, where we're just playing and enjoying it. The kids are adorable, and are always begging, "Can we go to class now???" It makes me feel like a success, even if they don't retain squat of the lessons. We're having fun, and enjoying church. If I can make the kids excited to come to church, then I feel like I've done the job I'm supposed to do.

November 23rd

Today I am very thankful that there is a 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and that the episode commemorating it involves David Tennant.

I haven't seen it yet.

But I'm grateful that my future involves this fact.

November 22nd

Today I'm thankful that at work we occasionally have "Farmer's Markets."

No, we're not actually selling anything. It's a cooking competition.

Which means, all I have to do is show up, and I get samples of 25 attempts to sign the Skillet of Glory, and have it sit on the winner's desk until the next event. Basically, their competition is my breakfast.

And yes, I also get a chance to show off my Strawberry-Citrus Potion of Jubilation.