On behalf of the 63d RD,
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Cesarie Pavese
I often have in the morning for breakfast one piece of toasted bread with melted butter and jam along with a hot cut of tea and added cream. My other choice, I often make, is to have toasted bread with a slice of cheese and tea with cream. When I think of these too options I get a warm feeling and I suppose that is why I eat this in the morning, but I began to think deeper of these foods that have become part of my daily eating ritual.
When I was very little we would go to grandma’s house, sometimes overnight, and would always be served a meal or two. I would always get car-sick on the way there so I’d have to lay in the living room recuperating. My grandmother had two stoves that she used for cooking. The electric range was off the dining room near the pantry/greenhouse. Her greenhouse was always full of begonias and fuchsias. Her wood cook stove was off the living room in sight of where I lay on the couch. It was in the wood cook stove that she always baked her bread.
Because she had been baking bread all of her life using a wood cook stove she knew how to keep the heat constant and at the right temperature. The smell was amazing and I waited for it to be done and removed from the oven box. Her bread was big and fluffy as well as chewy with substance. She always used butter in her bread and lard in her pies. Fat was not an issue back then. When the bread was done and cooling on the table, near the wood cook stove, I was witness to the whole process and inhaled every last scent. I didn’t mind getting sick on the way to grandma’s house because I could lay on her couch and watch her bake bread.
When the bread had cooled enough she would cut a slice for me, by then I was feeling better, and cover it with a good portion of butter and jam. She would make me a cup of tea; I have been drinking hot tea most of my life, and she would give me a lot of thick cream in my tea. I would sit at her table, next to the warmth of the wood cook stove, and drink my tea with cream, and eat my bread with butter and homemade jam.
This is the moment in life I remember, probably by instinct, when I make my own toasted bread. Her bread was fresh from the oven, mine is toasted. I skimp on the butter, but in my head I would like to lather it on. I apply the jam, strawberry is my favorite, in reminisce of eating the strawberries from my grandparents garden and then eating the homemade jam they would put on my bread.
All these memories are wrapped up neatly into a routine I do daily. But thinking back, I realized I eat these foods for breakfast or other times during the day because I love who first introduced me to the combination. I love the memory of the one that gave me this comfort long ago in a house filled with warmth and love of a child that needed her tea, jam and bread.
Why do I eat cheese and bread? Well, that is another story. Today give yourself the permission to indulge in a good memory, it may revolve around food. Let that memory take you back to a place that gave you comfort and love. Remember that moment, stay there a while, and let that moment do what it did long ago for me and now for you. You may even find that this moment has been with you all along giving you comfort without you even realizing it was there in your daily routine.
The scripture for today: Psalm 94:19: When I am filled with cares, your comfort brings me joy.
CH (MAJ) Dawn Siebold
Here is the direct email and phone number for anyone requesting support
From the 63d RD Chaplain office,
usarmy.usarc.63-rsc.list.chaplain-all-users@mail.mil
650-526-9668