Wednesday, November 21, 2007

cranberry cheese bread

I've grated two clementines' worth of peel and juiced them both; I halved a cup of cranberries; I shredded a cup and a half of cheddar cheese. I have five more minutes, while the pumpkin pie finishes scenting the house with its comforting warmth, before I put in the cranberry cheddar cheese bread.
This cheese bread smells incredible as it bakes; it sounds strange, to anyone who hasn't baked with Betty Crocker or lived in the South, but it is delicious. I can personally eat a half loaf of this stuff. I'm serious.
My mother baked this bread every year at the holidays, and for a long time I thought this was a cherished family recipe. When I lived in GA, I called her for it, on the occasion of the first Thanksgiving after I married. I wanted to recreate something in my own life that I recalled from my childhood -- the scent of comfort, the sense that all was well in the world when Mom was busy in the kitchen.
She looked it up while on the phone and carefully described the measurements, the ingredients, the baking temperature. And then she said "But I just got this out of Betty Crocker, so it's probably in that cookbook I gave you."
And it was.

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