Breaking Bread Alone

Rolling out of bed, I am careful to not move the bed in any way to disturb my sleeping husband who wakes at the slightest provocation.  I tiptoe past the doors to my daughters' rooms, climbing over the gate at the top of the stairs.  The click of it opening could possibly alert my daughters to the beginning of a new day and I am not yet ready to give up the silence that has settled on our home in the night.

No coffee, just a cup of  OJ in a glass accompanied by a bowl of cheerios with sliced strawberries floating in chilled milk.  Maybe today, I will be really wild and will have a blueberry muffin.  A newspaper opened to the Lifestyle section (click here to read An Ode to the Lifestyle Section) or the latest magazine that I pulled from our mailbox the day before ready to be dog-eared and thumbed through and most of all read. 

My to-do-list lays ready for the touch of my pen on the island.  I enjoy this time of day.  The day is a blank slate.  In this time, I can contemplate what I want to accomplish and the direction of my day.

Before I become a "mom" and "wife" again, I am only "me" for this brief interlude as I break bread alone.  My wants, my needs, simple as they may be, met so simply with food, the written word, and quiet (a rare commodity in a noisy household of four).  This morning routine is energizing to my mind, body, and spirit as the day begins.

Join me as I attempt to bake soda bread (Angelica Huston's recipe that has been passed to her family from their cook) in honor of St. Patrick's Day today.  This recipe printed on the Chicago Tribune website is slightly different from the original recipe on The One for the Table website.

Later today I will be posting a giveaway (breakfast related, of course).  Stay tuned.

Updated: Remember how I said I would attempt to bake soda bread. It didn't turn out quite the way it looked in the picture.  I probably shouldn't have substituted the whole milk for buttermilk even though the recipe said it was okay as long as you swapped baking powder for the baking soda. Oh well, we had fun trying to make it.