Bread of Life

A light-handed baker, an alchemist of rich gravy, and the queen of cobblers, Doreen Bishop, a petite widow of 78, held the undisputed position of finest cook at Prescott Friends Meeting. Naturally the newly formed Cookbook Committee at Prescott planned to feature her prominently in Bread of Life, a collection of recipes submitted by members to raise funds for the food pantry.

The project had kicked-off in early April. Over a month in, no one could have foreseen Doreen’s refusal to participate.

Mamie Cosgrove, chair of the Cookbook Committee, was beside herself. She lamented to Cody Blake, youth minister and staff liaison for the cookbook project, after their biweekly planning meeting. “Doreen shares her recipes with everybody, but for some reason, she wants nothing to do with the cookbook. It won’t sell nearly so well without her. What can we do, Cody?”

Cody patted her arm. “I’ll talk to her, Mamie. Since Phil died, she seems to have withdrawn a bit. Maybe she needs some encouragement.”

The next Sunday morning, Cody slid into the pew behind Doreen and her friend Linda Rountree shortly before the start of the service. “Good morning, ladies! Doreen, I wanted to ask you to reconsider submitting some recipes to Bread of Life. You’ve been feeding Prescott Friends for years, and it won’t be complete without your mini pineapple upside-down cakes, or the chicken pie you made for me when I moved here.” Cody closed his eyes and kissed his fingertips. “Your recipes are famous. They’ll help keep the food pantry stocked for years.”

Doreen turned, receiving the full effect of Cody’s melting bittersweet-chocolate eyes. As the organist began the prelude, he touched her shoulder and rose to leave. “Please reconsider. We need you!” His departure fanned a breeze against the nape of Doreen’s neck, making her shiver.

Linda whispered, “Give the boy a recipe, Doreen. I gave ’em Uncle Walt’s honeybun cake. Never made it myself because I don’t know what size pan or how long to bake it, but I wanted to see it in print. Don’t you want to see your recipes in print?”

“Not really.” She couldn’t explain that since Phil’s death ten months back, she’d fallen out of the habit of cooking. Her kitchen felt strange and unwelcoming. At first she’d intended to submit several recipes to the cookbook, but the process of sifting through recipe boxes and binders left her numb. A battle-scarred recipe for corn fritters had frozen her blood, and she’d known she couldn’t bear to see any recipe reduced to stark black ink on a white page—a butterfly pinned in a specimen case: skewered through the thorax, flightless, with no dark crescent where the bottle cap for the vanilla had rested, no translucent melted-butter thumbprint. Her beloved recipes would lose too much in translation, and she couldn’t stand more loss.

Doreen shifted in the pew. Drat Cody Blake and his dark, beseeching eyes. He probably thought her unreasonable. She pulled her thick cardigan tight around her and tried to focus on Pastor Liz’s message:

. . . the parable of the talents in Luke chapter 19, which George Fox references in Epistle 405, writing: “I desire that you may all improve your gifts and talents, and not hide them in a napkin, lest they be taken from you.”

Doreen closed her eyes in shock. She knew the message wasn’t intended for her personally; Pastor Liz was incapable of unkindness. Still, the words stung. During open worship, the Spirit nearly moved Doreen to stand and announce she wasn’t withholding recipes from meanness but from a desire to protect, to preserve. She ignored this prompting and stayed silent, but her heart remained troubled.

Doreen fretted her way through Monday. On Tuesday, she stood in her indifferent kitchen, touching the sterile countertop. Cooking was her only gift. If she didn’t contribute to Bread of Life, what would be left after she was gone? She and Phil had no family treasures, no child or grandchild, not so much as a handmade basket or quilt. Bread of Life might be her only chance for a family legacy for them both. But, oh, the pain of seeing the recipes stripped bare. Overwhelmed by emptiness, she pressed her forehead against the smooth surface of the humming refrigerator. She whispered to the emptiness, “What would you do?”

On Wednesday, Doreen entered the meetinghouse through the side door closest to the ministers’ offices and walked down the hall to Cody’s open door. She stopped in the doorway, tiny and delicate in bib overalls and a cardigan, her cloud-gray hair gathered up in a soft knot. She tapped on the door frame.

Cody whirled in his rolling chair. Before he could speak, Doreen said her piece: “I can’t sing, draw, or play a lick of music. Can’t do much but cook. That’s my only gift, so I guess it should be shared. I never meant to be stingy with my recipes—why, they aren’t even mine! They came from my family and our oldest friends, going back generations. I’ve decided I want to honor them.”

Cody stood up, a smile rising on his face like the morning sun. Doreen held up her hand. “There’s a condition. I want photographs of the original recipes in the book, exactly as they are.” She pulled a recipe card out of the front breast pocket of her overalls.

Cody took the card. “Grandma Prue’s Pumpkin Bread” was written across the top in faded ink.

“If we could show them as they are, I believe the cookbook would have more character.”

Cody turned and leaned over his computer; the committee hadn’t planned to include photos in the cookbook. He entered a series of keystrokes and scrolled through a website. Straightening, he returned the recipe card. “I’ll have to do more research, but I expect the publisher will do anything for a price.” He moved toward her, his dark eyes alight.

“No, don’t come dancing at me; we’re talking business. How many recipes do you want?”

“There are seven food sections and one called ‘This and That.’ We’ll take everything you bring us.”

“This and That?”

“Stuff that doesn’t fall into another category. Right now we’ve got dog biscuits, beet pickles, and play dough.”

Doreen’s jaw softened. “Granny Bell’s pear marmalade might look nice between the play dough and beet pickles.”

Cody threw his head back and laughed. “May I please dance at you now?”

It had occurred to her that life, like cooking, required a firm commitment—a need to go all in, even in the face of disappointment.

Cody’s desire to dance was short-lived. The next day he conferred with the publisher’s representative at length, then spoke with Mamie Cosgrove and Pastor Liz before calling Doreen. “Well. There’s no budget for photos, and all recipes must be submitted on a standard form.”

Doreen’s heart dropped. “Oh.”

“But there’s good news, too. The publisher offers another fundraising opportunity—recipes printed on cotton tea towels. I’ve managed to get permission to use part of the holiday craft sale budget for the first batch, and I think they’ll more than pay for themselves. What do you think?”

Doreen pictured the corn fritter recipe on a tea towel. Certainly no one could accuse her of hiding her gift in a napkin if it were printed on one.

Copies of Bread of Life arrived in late September, ahead of the tea towels. Doreen’s Sunday school class cut their lesson short and hurried to the fellowship hall to check them out and buy their copies. Everyone seemed delighted, but to Doreen the recipes looked insipid. There was Maheen Abdallah’s delicious spicy beef, and it looked no more enticing on the page than the recipe for dog biscuits.

Cody noticed Doreen’s disappointment and patted her shoulder. “The towels will be here soon.”

Doreen sighed. “Oh, well, I’ll take 20 cookbooks.”

It had occurred to her that life, like cooking, required a firm commitment—a need to go all in, even in the face of disappointment. An egg, once beaten, couldn’t be unscrambled any more than sour milk could be magically freshened. A cook faced two choices when a recipe went sideways: throw the ingredients in the trash and cry or take the next step necessary to prepare a dish that called for beaten eggs and sour milk.

On a golden Saturday afternoon the second weekend in November, Cody carried a box of tea towels up the steps of Doreen Bishop’s house. Potted yellow mums lined the brick steps to her porch, and a Thanksgiving flag flew from a pole attached to one of the white-painted posts.

The noise level inside the house made ringing the doorbell useless. Cody walked in to find six members of Prescott’s primary school class around the dining-room table, mixing batter with their hands. Hearing his footsteps, nine-year-old Emily Cosgrove turned her freckled face up to Cody who was peering into her mixing bowl. “We were using spoons, but it’s easier with hands,” she explained.

“What is it?”

“Pumpkin bread!” Emily, Jamal, Frazier, and the Morgan triplets shouted at once in varying keys. Each child had a copy of Bread of Life open to the recipe. The pages were spattered with flour and cinnamon, and a few flecks of copper-colored batter.

Cody took out his phone to document the action for the meeting’s Facebook page as Doreen emerged from the kitchen carrying eight small loaf pans. “Everybody can take a loaf home,” she told the cooks. “Emily’s mom will deliver the extras to Mr. Dameron and Mrs. Fisk. I’ve got cards for you to sign to send with them—after we clean up.”

While the loaves baked, the group scrubbed the table. Doreen handed out paper towels. “Make sure there isn’t wet batter in your cookbooks, or the pages will stick together.”

“This mark won’t come off!” Frazier held up the page to show a smear of ground cinnamon.

“Smudges are a badge of honor,” Doreen said. “Don’t worry if your book gets a little messy. Keep using them. You can even write in them. Yes, Jamal, you can mark through ‘raisins.’”

After the last child had departed and the house settled into peace with the sweet smell of pumpkin spice still lingering in the air, Cody held up the box of tea towels. “Here’s your reward for an exhausting day. By the way, you handled those kids like a pro.”

“We had fun, except for a loud fuss over raisins. Let’s take the box to the porch. It’s gotten warm in here.” Doreen took her time getting two cans of ginger ale from the fridge, wishing to delay possible disappointment.

She settled into a rocker, and Cody placed the box on her lap. He popped open his ginger ale and sat down. “Dig in. I know you want to.”

Doreen hesitated, then lifted the flaps of the box and pulled out a towel. There it was: Phil’s handwriting, bigger than life, on his recipe for corn fritters. She could see him in the kitchen, scraping fresh corn off the cob and creating an unholy mess—how did anyone get corn in their hair?—but enjoying himself hugely while making up silly verses to “Home on the Range.”

Doreen held the towel near her heart. Cody took a picture before she could protest. “For me, not Facebook,” he promised.

Doreen resumed rocking. “Next weekend I’m making pumpkin bread with the high school class. Why don’t you stop by and stay for supper? Bring your cookbook, and I’ll show you how to make that chicken pie you like.” She paused to take a sip of her ginger ale; Cody sensed she had more to say. “But listen, Cody, I have an idea. Maheen’s spicy beef recipe is in the cookbook. Now, it is perfectly delicious. Why don’t we offer classes at the meetinghouse so she and others can demonstrate their recipes? Everybody could bring ingredients and a cookbook and make the dish alongside the cooks—a sort of revolving supper club to build fellowship and sell more cookbooks.”

Doreen was determined to get every cookbook thoroughly broken in—alive and speckled with evidence of hard use.

Cody raised his ginger ale in a salute. “I don’t know the first thing about organizing cooking classes, but seven months ago, I didn’t know anything about cookbooks. I’m willing to work on it if you’ll help.”

Doreen’s heart lifted with gladness as she eyed her Thanksgiving flag. Tomorrow she’d modify the corn fritter tea towel and run it up the flagpole as an emblem of her newfound mission. She turned to Cody. “Of course I’ll help. I’m all in.”