The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Having made a joyful noise unto the Lord last night at the vigil Mass, the celebration of the Nativity of the Lord at my house unfolded gently this morning, and for the first time in years I did not celebrate morning prayer alone as the dawn broke.

The boys got up and helped me get the breakfast ready: orange juice, tea, and homemade cinnamon buns. Gifts were opened and enjoyed (my favorites - Math Man 's gift of an e-book by one of my favorite authors; Crash's Nerf dart gun - along with lessons in how to shoot it; and the Boy's kit to construct a robot from coins - the first time he's ever shopped solo for me with his own money).

Crash wanted loaves of "Wernersville Bread" (actually Brother's Bread from Secrets of Jesuit Bread Baking - a gift from my father years before I ever visited the old novitiate); Barnacle Boy lusted after his own favorite, the yeast rolls from Fannie Farmer. I manged to get a batch of each made this afternoon, juggled around the rest of the cooking. Twenty minutes before dinner was due to be ready, as I opened the oven to slide the rolls in, I knocked the pan with the two loaves off the stove top where they had been rising. The pan flipped and both loaves hit the floor. I could hear the oof as they deflated - right along with my pride in my ability to juggle multiple cooking projects.

Crash and I picked the now seriously unleavened bread off the floor. By some miracle both loaves were on the dish towel I'd covered the pan with, so we reformed them and left then to rise a third time. (There's a parable here I'm sure...) The third time was perhaps not quite the charm, the loaves are a bit flatter than usual, but Crash professed his delight with the outcome nonetheless.