Day 7 - Favorite Food

My favorite food is bread and pasta (I should just say flour but that would not be accurate.) I particularly enjoy sourdough french bread - and living in the Bay Area of California for over 10 years, San Francisco sourdough - tops the list.

Now, usually I don't buy bread because I can eat a whole loaf in an unmentionable amount of time, give me butter and it will go even faster!

I was not about to run out and buy a loaf to take this picture, but did think of swinging by the grocery store to take a pictures of their selection but then I would have HAD to buy one - because I was THERE so I didn't do that. Instead I pulled out some San Francisco Sourdough English Muffins - Mini's that were sent to us as a Christmas gift. I've been eating the other varieties first - saving my favorite for last!

I have been trying to think all day what that says about me and the type of person I am. Whenever I think of sourdough I also think about the fact that you need a starter - something from a previous batch to help make it 'sour.' Of course, San Francisco sourdough - the best in the world - is said to be from the same starter that was originally brought over way back when. (If you are unfamiliar with a starter, when you use a bit you replace the same volume so that you have a never ending supply - you carry the fermentation forward and it helps it along.)

In the case of bread - it means each bread baked from that starter carries within it a bit of it's long standing history and there is a little bit of that history in each of us. One of my other hobbies is genealogy. I love history (even though I have a hard time remembering the dates and names I can tell you the stories) and love researching and learning about my own family history.

I can remember going through boxes with my Dad when I was in high school and reading letters from great-great-great-grandpa's and in one of them we found the description of three pictures that had been sent from overseas to the family that had moved to America. It was then that we finally found out who the people were in photos that had been hanging on a wall for years and only one or two people were identified. Because of this fun and entertaining research we were able to link the photo to the letter and discovered it was my great-great-great-grandpa and several of his children; as well as, identify and locate the other photos mentioned in the letter. By the time my Dad got them he had, had no idea that they had been taken at the same time and sent as a package.

I carry a bit of that history within me and am always thinking of the lives they lived and from the letters I know how some of the details parallel my own life. Names used then - being used now. Occupations that seemed to be shared across generations such as secretarial and teaching roles.

So, like the sourdough bread - I carry a little bit of my history with me no matter how much I change and reinvent myself.