Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A Family Recipe & Its Miraculous Effects

All delicious, but none miraculous.
This column appeared yesterday in the local newspaper. If anyone is interested, the recipe is available, but it will cost you the same as the Colonel's chicken recipe or Coca-Cola's secret recipe. And I don't know where the bakers in the family keep it hidden, so no guarantees.


There is a homemade bread recipe handed down from generation to generation on my wife’s side of the family that works miracles.

Now I personally have not experienced the miraculous due to this mysterious mixture of wondrous ingredients, but three generations of women in the family swear by it. The ingredients include wheat flour, All-Bran, raisins, and flax.


Mix, bake, cool, slice. Eat. 


Then wait. And not very long from what I’m told.

The family calls it Go Bread.

My daughter is mortified that people would even consider talking about the physical need for Go Bread, let alone openly sharing stories around the table, say, while enjoying dessert. That there are people in the world – in her family! – that find Go Bread a healthy, enjoyable, and sometimes necessary part of their balanced breakfast, well it’s too much for her teenage brain to handle. Someone mentions Go Bread, and she’s off to her bedroom, texting. Probably telling her friends about her sick family.

The boy just thinks it’s funny. There are certain topics that cause ten-year-old boys to commence giggling. Some include smells. Others include noises. Most include the bathroom. Go Bread, or the miraculous effects due to its consumption, touches on all three. If Grandma says, “You know, I gave the recipe for Go Bread to your Aunt Mildred,” the ladies around the table, all concerned, ask how she’s feeling.

The boy? Hysterics.

Me? I always remain a silent observer in these conversations, content to listen but not qualified to participate. And even though I have never enjoyed this delectable delight, I understand the consequences of consumption. More importantly, I understand the consequences of overconsumption.

My nephew, a toddler, lacks an adult’s knowledge and experience. As a result, he tends to understand fewer things, yet what he does know he comprehends with greater intensity. Some related concepts of which he has a thorough grasp include: Hungry. Food. Eat. Yum. More.

And Grandma. He understands Grandma too.

So when the lad got hungry at his grandparents’ house, he went straight to Grandma who cut him a healthy slice of a healthy snack. Go Bread. Which he ate. And enjoyed.

And demanded, “More!”

Which he got.

(Now, despite my best journalistic efforts, the story here gets a bit murky. How much Go Bread did he eat? Was it a complete loaf to start? Did anyone else share the Go Bread? There are numerous opinions, but from what I can gather, the youngster ate anywhere from “a slice or two” to “the whole stupid loaf,” depending on the source.)

They say Go Bread performs the miraculous. What it did to my nephew, however, defies the laws of physics. Four changed diapers. Four sets of new clothes. Four baths. All in one morning.

And his mother, a member of the third generation to swear by Go Bread, now swears AT Go Bread.

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