Our Braided BreadThe pandemic has made it difficult and sometimes scary for family and friends to ga

Our Braided Bread

The pandemic has made it difficult and sometimes scary for family and friends to gather around the same table to enjoy not just a delicious meal together, but the nourishment of one another’s company. In this beautiful essay, Benjamin Dubow reflects on the process of baking challah each week for his Friday evening Shabbat meal using a sourdough starter lovingly called “Orlando,” a living, breathing being that evolves as Dubow experiments with his recipe. Come for the bread, stay for the story, and revel in the fellowship and community.

Orlando and I have been working on this challah recipe since we moved to Ames two summers ago. I started with other recipes, including my sister’s and Joan Nathan’s, and tasted what they were about. Then, we tinkered.

To make the bread more tender, I’ve added more oil, a bit more sugar, a couple more eggs — and good ones at that. I try to use the best eggs I can find, eggs befitting a holy bread. The ones I get from Ron & Kristine up in Hubbard from chickens raised on Central Iowan pasture beam with sunlight transmuted into liquid gold. The yolks are nearly orange (the product of their foraged, insect-heavy diet) and color the dough so bright a yellow it looks as though I’ve added turmeric. Now, when I make challah with other eggs — even the nice ones I sometimes get from the co-op when my poultry people are out — the dough looks sad and wan by comparison. Unilluminated.

Then, of course, there is the added component of Orlando, whose presence in this Sabbath bread brings home for me the concept of shalom, though I can’t tell you exactly why that is the case. (Shalom means peace, shalom means welfare.) Only that the feeling I get when we bake together, and especially when we bake challah together, is the same sort of feeling I get when I’m home with my family for Shabbos. (Shalom means wholeness, means harmony.)  This, too, I cannot quite describe. Just that I feel a particular warmth in my heart and stomach, cheeks and toes. (Shalom is also used as a salutation — on the Sabbath, for instance, we say: Shabbat shalom.)

I think we’re pretty darn close to where it wants to be. In distinction to our usual sourdough loaf, our challah has a soft crust (though it still could be even softer) and a finer, closer crumb, the lattice of strands more braided pillow than agglutinated web.