Bun Out Of The Oven

If you follow the Bread Baking Babes, you might have noticed that I was absent from our posting day last Friday. My absence was especially bad because I was the host kitchen!

Despite what you might think, I'm not a total flake. I had made the bread. Twice. I was ready to put up my post and talk about the recipe. I even had some ideas about how to incorporate that funky 70's hippie vibe that this bread put me in mind of. But then I got a phone call. At 4 am.

My pregnant daughter called to let me know that her water had broken. Four weeks early. Despite all her happy plans for a home birth attended by a wonderful midwife and doula, she and her husband had to go to the hospital. So her entourage went with her. We walked with them, sat with them, helped them make tough decisions.

And then came the labor. Intense labor. So, so hard, with not a moment to nap or recover. But my daughter was amazing. She went through the whole thing without medication and about 19 hours after her water broke, she gave birth to a beautiful little girl.

It was an intense day filled with heartbreak, disappointment, weariness, despair, pain, exhaustion, agony, much blood, and then the miracle of a new little life. So worth it.

So, really, which would you rather I talked about? This, a dense, gummy loaf made from sprouted wheat-



or this. Isn't she perfect?