My mom's zucchini bread is meaningful. It is a part of me. It is part of my family, my history, and making it tonight has helped me to remember and reflect.
Today was a long, rainy, and just overall dark day. It was chilly and somehow felt especially lonely. It was one of the rare days when I had those 2.5 hours to myself, and while I was able to spend a bit of it with a beautiful friend of mine, I also felt a little lost while all of my children were at school.
The nagging rain was wearing me down. I needed something to pick me up, more than the hugs and smiles the kids brought with them as they bounded through the doors at the end of their day. People were talking about rainy day baking today, and suddenly, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to bake.
It's my therapy. It's my happy place.
Trixie was playing on the computer with her brothers, but I asked her if she wanted to help me make some of Grandma's zucchini bread. I was expecting her to say no, but she enthusiastically said yes. She rushed right into the kitchen with me then started opening cabinet doors and drawers, finding all of the ingredients, measuring cups, and bowls that we needed to make this quintessential fall treat. I shredded the zucchini, and away we went with making warm memories together. We set to work on baking the drear away.
We chatted about her day at school and how much she likes her new music teacher. She told me that she couldn't wait until October when we could start baking pumpkin muffins. Standing at the counter with my ten-year-old daughter, making this recipe that I had learned from my own mom when I was a little girl, was an incredible way to spend what had just been a pretty depressing day. This had been an icky, gloomy night before one of the worst dates in our nation's history.
I didn't expect the rush of emotions that ran through me when I bit into that freshly sliced, still-warm-from-the-oven zucchini bread that Trixie and I baked together. I felt just like a little girl, standing in my parents' kitchen in a flannel nightgown. I remembered baking those loaves many times for my dad to share with his friends at the mill. I remembered taking them to school to pass around my sixth grade social studies class. I remembered coming home from college to find my mom had some waiting for me on the kitchen table. The smell of the cinnamon, the taste and the texture of that sweet bread: all of it took me right back to being a kid again, being home with my mom, my dad, and my brothers.
Zucchini bread. It's so simple, yet so heartwarming. So what if the recipe is at least 40 years old and calls for two cups of sugar? We only eat it a few times a year. It's worth it for the special treat and the memories we're making. Our whole family enjoyed the moist, delicious bread with glasses of ice cold milk, while the rain kept falling through the trees outside our window.
As you read this post on September 11th, our children will have woken up to carry on with the life that they know as American kids in 2014. Their world is nothing like the world I knew when I was baking zucchini bread at ages eleven or ten or seven or four. I'm sad for the changes that have come through the years, but I'm also thankful for what has stayed the same.
Dads going to work; moms baking in the kitchen; kids drinking milk.
Home.
May we always remember.
Grandma's Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 c. grated zucchini
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the last five dry ingredients. Gently fold them together, not overbeating. Pour into 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for 30 more minutes, or until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean. Immediately remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.
*You may also add 1/2 c. chopped nuts to the dry ingredients. I like it with pecans.
What constants from your childhood have you passed on to your children? What is "Home" to you?
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Love it. Sounds delicious. You and I have moved around enough to know that home is where the family is. As long as my family is with me, we're "home."
ReplyDeletePerfectly said. Home is where the family is.
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