aperitif

aperitif: (fr) noun- a small alcoholic drink taken to stimulate the appetite and awaken the pallet before a meal.

   I thought it appropriate to begin this new blog as you would a special meal, by wetting the appetite so that all the flavors may be savored.  

   Why Breaking Bread, as a child I enjoyed many wonderful meals at my grandparents.  The one thing that was always on the table was some kind of bread.  The most common forms from my grandmother were either cornbread, biscuits or what we called a "daddy pone."  A Daddy Pone is drop biscuit dough uncut in a skillet to make a giant biscuit.  My grandfather had one rule when it came to table bread in our family: NO KNIFE.  His argument was that so many important meals in the Bible involve the breaking of bread.  To this day I have trouble cutting table bread.  There is something to be said about sharing a meal with friends and family and especially with strangers.  After a shared meal strangers become friends.  There is also something to be said for homemade break.  Something happens to the food when it has been worked by hand.

   Though I am not certain where this blog will go, I do know that I would like it to be a place for me to share recipes for table and for life.  I hope things will develop as with the story in Luke 24.  The travelers on the road to Emmaus have invited the stranger to stay with them for the evening.

   30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

   Earlier this year I had the opportunity to join our Deacon to make the altar bread for church.  I kneaded the dough, I worked it into small rounds, cutting crosses into each side.  At communion the bread is then broken by hand and shared by hand.  A prayer from the Roman Rite sums it up nicely.

"Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.  Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made.  It will become for us the bread of life." 

In our lives, as in the Eucharist, God uses us and the work of our hands to feed a hungry world. 

   I pray that this blog will help all of us to open our pallets to the food of this earth and open our hearts to the food of the spirit.