Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread and Batter!

A hundred lifetimes ago, I baked competitively and had a bit of a reputation around town as The Pie Queen. The year I got four 1st Place and one 2nd Place, I realized God keeps us humble in pretty blatant ways sometimes and I stepped away from competition to let others coming up behind me have a chance at the fame and fun. I never really missed it. Funny, one of the things I kept was that box full of ribbons. Tales of the glory days, I suppose.

After a lifetime of baking, I know a good baker when I find one. And I’m always on the lookout for a really great bakery. Some time ago, Mr. FixIt and I were driving down a two lane blacktop when I spotted a sign pointing up a holler. “Our Daily Bread and Batter”. (You can find them here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074026041367 ) I was intrigued…but I was also hauling a camper. Since I don’t get down that way very often, I never had the occasion to go back, but that little sign stayed with me. I thought, you have to be a pretty good bakery to make a go of it up a West Virginia holler.

There’s a little house on the main road that goes through our town. Someone came in and tried to open it up as a restaurant, but it just didn’t look very appealing and before long, it was closed up again. The house sat empty for some time. About a month or so ago, I drove through town and saw a sign out front. “Future Home of Our Daily Bread and Batter!” Wahooooo! I went to the post office yesterday to ship off the books to those who wanted them, and on the way home, I pulled into the little parking lot in front of the little blue house for a little…snack!

As one might expect from the name, I was greeted with artwork and signs of Faith all around. A small basket by the cash register held copies of “Our Daily Bread”…the devotional I used to get from Grandma’s church. I picked one up with a smile, warm memories flooding over me. Or, was that the enticing aromas coming from the little kitchen in the back? Oh, my…it did smell divine in there!

A small glass case held what was left of the day’s baked treats. It was already 2:00 by the time I got there and someone else had just about cleaned them out. I selected two glazed donuts, two fry pies, and two pepperoni rolls. A few years ago, there was a small country store on the two lane near the farm that sold the best pepperoni rolls I’ve ever had. I have looked everywhere and haven’t found anything near as good…until yesterday! Oh, dear…I can already see that I am going to have to have a weekly ritual throughout the winter to break up the monotony. There’s a small coffee shop that opened this summer. And now, the bakery. Add that to a couple very cute junk shops and a quilt shop housed in the old one room school house, and I can see I may be having some very happy Wednesdays on my calendar!

I used to have a weekly open house at my needlework shop. Every Wednesday, women would be waiting for me to open the door. They’d haul in their tote bags with whatever project they were working on, and we would sit around the big table in the back of the shop. We’d order lunch in, then the gals would wander around the shop and pick out more projects to work on. The last gal would leave as I locked up the door for the night. Those were always my best days. Not just because I had big sales. That was nice. But, more important was the camaraderie…the communing with other like-minded women. I’ve always said my stitching groups have been my favorite forms of group therapy.

When I first moved here, I had visions of the big building out back being converted into a space for gatherings, retreats, quilting bees…that sort of thing. Over the years, the hopes of that have slimmed as it’s just so hard for my sweetheart to let go of his “stuff”. I get that…it took losing Mr. Virgo and the need to downsize for me to let go of mine. Now, I picture “the campground”…the space I’m slowly creating to have a ring of campers or tiny homes or a big tent…something where I can gather creative women for an afternoon, or a day, or a weekend. I picture a covered pavilion where we can sit out of the sun or rain…maybe with a fire pit in the middle. It could have sliding doors…or garage doors that could open according to the weather.

We always need dreams. It’s what makes us get up in the mornings. It’s what helps us get through hard times. It’s what brings us joy. I’ll keep dreaming and visualizing a real “Marshmallow Ranch”. I will build it…and the gals will join me and we’ll all have a big time!

Won’t it be grand?!?!