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A Letter From Your Friend!

I love bread! I enjoy it toasted, roasted, fried, grilled, hot, cold, buttered, honeyed, jammed, sandwiched, fresh, day-old, sweet or sour. Just about every kind there is appeals to me--except Rye and Pumpernickel. I love Wheatberry, Sourdough, Cornbread, Raisin, English Muffins (with or without raisins), Australian Toaster Biscuits (with or without raisins or honey-bits), White, Cinnamon, Wholewheat, Blueberry, Raspberry and Apple/Cinnamon Muffins, Biscuits, soft warm Dinner Rolls, German Black, Danish, Pocket and Pita, Stoneground, Grilled Cheese, Poppyseed, Crumpets, Oatmeal, French, Garlic, Unleavened, Breadsticks, and the list goes on--I haven't even begun writing about pastries.

Many of my favorite places are associated with bread. Anderson's Pea Soup restaurant in Solvang, California serves three kinds of hot miniature loaves and real butter with every meal. Marie Calendar's has the thickest fresh cornbread I have ever seen and their honey-butter makes it even better. A cook named Ladonna in Modesto, California creates wonders with her own sourdough starter. Pat Martinsen, my co-author's wife in Auburn, Washington, makes better use of a Bosch than anyone I know. (For my 40th birthday she gave me a fresh loaf which I ate all by myself.)

You might think it strange, but I prefer a peanut butter and jam sandwich to spaghetti, pizza, cauliflower, asparagus, and even stewed tomatoes. I once went on a three day backpacking trip with pre-made sandwiches for my only food. The meals were wonderful, quick and tasty! I particularly enjoyed the way three-day-old peanut butter and honey sandwiches sort of crystallize the bread into a crunchy sweetness. Things did get a little sticky as the days passed and I had to reach farther into the bag for the next one.

I especially love my wife Marji's home-made bread! There is nothing quite like coming into the house and smelling the delicious aroma of baking bread! My mouth has begun watering just thinking about it. Somewhere I heard that fresh, hot bread and butter are not good for you, but I confess without a shred of guilt that I will place my life at risk every time it is available!

This year at Christmas, I wanted to get my wife one of those new-fangled bread machines--you know, the things you just pour ingredients into and then leave alone. As you go about your day, it mixes, kneads, raises, kneads again, bakes and cools bread that is almost as delicious as it is easy. The machine's teflon coated bread-dish almost cleans itself. I wanted to get her one, but I didn't. She reminded me that we are trying to save for a family vacation to Hawaii and can't afford such a thing. I am tempted to trade my plane ticket for a bread machine. Do you have one?

This probably seems like a crummy way to introduce a Bible Study and I hope you don't toast me for it. All my other study-starters seemed like half-baked ideas. I knew we kneaded something to increase our appetite and this was fresh out of the oven ... So crusty as it may seem, I'm going to serve it anyway. Hope you eat your fill. There may be a reason Jesus compared Himself to bread. It's hard to imagine a meal without it.

Jesus replied, "I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never be hungry and he who believes in and cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me will never thirst any more (at any time)." John 6:35 (The Amplified Bible)