Baking: Gluttony? or Sabbath Practice?

I've been on a baking binge this week. I've made three loaves of rosemary foccacia bread (the bread my niece and nephew call "Aunt Laura Bread"), three loaves of ciabatta bread, three dozen chocolate chip cookies, one batch of my new favorite "Tuscan Short Bread" (with rosemary and walnuts), and a huge batch of amazingly delicious and decadent cinnamon rolls.

While we do have relatives coming to visit this weekend, I'd be lying if I said that were my motivation for all this baking activity. A friend of ours once told my husband, "You know what you've got? A 'Liberated Woman' who wants to be 'Homemaker of the Century,'" and while I must admit there's some truth to that statment, God help me, that wasn't my motivation either. It was, pure and simple, my desire to satisfy the cravings of my heart, not to mention my mouth and my nose! I guess I'm giving away that I didn't give up sweets for Lent as I have attempted to do in the past. I didn't give up anything. I "flunked" Lent this year, I guess (Here's a great post on this subject: http://ekklesiaproject.blogspot.com/2009/03/flunking-lent.html). I'm a glutton.

But the delight I have found in kneading bread dough from rumpled and messy to smooth and elastic, and the satisfaction I have found in the scent of buttery shortbread, and the rest I have found in waiting on bread to rise...These lead me to think of baking as a practice which helps me to "sanctify time," as I was talking about in last week's post. Certainly, if I were an Orthodox Jew, it wouldn't work as a Sabbath practice, because baking is clearly a form of labor. And yet, for me, while the bread is in the oven, I sit in my rocking chair and inhale the aroma, and I relax into the warm presence of it, and I'm held in God's hand.

And there's nothing quite liked baked goods for bringing together a community! I bake almost every week for our Sunday school class, and I think they know now that the muffins I bring are a form of my love for them. I'm also trying to bake for the garden workdays, with the same idea in mind. Where there's bread, there's community. I learned it from Jesus himself.

Here's the most delicious and easiest bread recipe I know, which I got from No Need to Knead by Suzanne Dunaway( http://www.buonaforchetta.com/noneed.html).

Rosemary Foccacia Bread (Dunaway via Hudson)

• 2 cups luke-warm water
• 2 tsp. yeast (or one envelope)
• 4 cups unbleached bread flour
• 2-3 tsp. salt
• Chopped fresh rosemary (can use dried, but fresh tastes better)
• kosher or sea salt
• olive oil

1. Pour water in a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast into water and stir until dissolved. Add two cups of flour, and stir until smooth. Add two more cups of flour and salt, and stir until the flour is incorporated. The dough will be pretty wet and sticky. Cover and let rise 40 mins or so. (You can also cover it and let it rise overnight in the fridge. Just let it come to room temp. before continuing).

2. Oil a large skillet (cast iron works great), and pour the risen dough into it. Brush olive oil on top, sprinkle with chopped rosemary and salt. Let rise again, 20-30 mins.

3. Heat oven to 500. Bake bread for 10-15 mins at this temp, and then turn it down to 400 for 10-15 mins. more. Try to wait to break into into until it has cooled completely on a rack!