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[Back to index of May/June 2009 articles] Let Us Bake Bread Together By Lucy Chumbley
The main Sunday service at St. Timothy’s, D.C., is over and most parishioners have drifted home for lunch, but downstairs in the church kitchen, three generations of women are in full throttle. They’ve changed out of their Sunday best, donning T-shirts and aprons to prepare for an afternoon of work – baking goods to sell at the diocesan ECW stall at Flower Mart, the annual fund-raiser for Washington National Cathedral’s gardens and grounds. The baking day has been an annual event at the church since 1985, and the women (with Bruce Mann, the teenage grandson of longtime ECW member Meighan Chan) fall easily into their various roles, chatting and laughing and guiding the younger generation’s efforts. They begin by baking the year’s special – miniature sweet potato pies – then quickly move on to their staple contribution, many varieties of bread. The women donate the ingredients and their time to the project, bringing large Tupperware containers of condiments from home. “We take the basic recipe and I do specialty breads,” says junior warden Marsyl Allain, pulling her first creation out of the oven – a fragrant golden garlic loaf made with mozzarella and Italian seasoning – to a chorus of admiration. “That looks like a $10 loaf, doesn’t it?” Chan says proudly as the others pause to admire it and Allain sets it aside to cool. “I’m making cinnamon rolls with rum-soaked raisins.” Joyce Shaw is helping her granddaughter Brittany Hart make cloverleaf shaped cheese rolls. “That was my idea,” Hart says, forming her dough into balls and rolling it in a bowl of grated cheddar. “I like cheese.” She makes a tiny roll with the leftover dough – “that can be our taste tester” – and takes her tray to the oven. On the bottom shelf of a trolley next to the industrial oven, dough is rising in an array of metal bowls covered with clean tea-towels. On the top shelf a row of pans await their turn in the oven. The women circle like honeybees, taking turns to check on the loaves and removing them just as they are done. There are no mishaps – no burned bread or hands – throughout the afternoon. Oiling her hands, Peggy Edwards works on her contribution – two double batches of plain rolls, which makes six or seven pans of bread. “Peggy has been part of this from the inception and is an excellent baker,” Allain says, watching Edwards shape her dough into balls and place them into a baking pan. Nearby, Christine Shelton and Jackie Bowie are also making rolls. At the other end of the kitchen, Shaw is showing her granddaughter how to make cinnamon rolls. She sprays a baking sheet with Pam and rolls the dough flat, trimming the edges. They spread the dough with layers of brown sugar and rum-soaked raisins and brush it with melted butter. Hart rolls it up carefully, then cuts it into slices and arranges them in a pan. ECW president Stephanie Byrd puts on a green apron emblazoned with the words “Have You Hugged an Episcopalian Today?” and starts washing the dishes. “We’ve got a clean-up woman in the house!” Allain cheers. There are 10 cooks in the kitchen, and several others who do not bake with the group contribute cakes, muffins and cornbread to the effort, Chan says. One year, she says, there were 15 women in the kitchen, and the workspace spilled out onto tables in the parish hall. Today, every inch of the kitchen is in use, with pans of bread rising, cooling and being readied for baking. “I’m putting in someone’s cheese rolls,” Shelton says, swooping past the oven. Edwards takes out her finished loaves and brushes them with butter. “It smells so good in here,” Hart says. “Anybody need any help?” It’s now 2 p.m., and the women have been at their tasks nonstop since well before noon. Some, including Chan, arrived early in the morning to set up the kitchen. “Can we eat now? I’m hungry!” Chan says. But the baking rhythm is unstoppable. The oven doors open and close, pans are placed in, turned, pulled out, and the women continue to shape and work the dough. Chan squeezes the rum out of a handful of raisins, which have been soaking in a glass jar, and she and her granddaughter, Kierra Mann, set to work on a final cinnamon roll. Some ingredients are starting to run low, and the women pitch in to help each other finish up. “Does anyone have any cinnamon?” Chan asks, and Shaw brings some over. As the pans continue their progression through the oven, someone finds an overlooked batch of dough and prepares it for baking. Some women pack their condiments back into their Tupperware and wait around the oven. Others set out the potluck lunch in another room. At around 3:30 p.m., the women finally break for lunch, resting their feet while the bread cools. But sitting down at the laden table they spot some store-bought rolls and start to laugh. “What!” they cry, in one voice. “After all the rolls we’ve baked today, we’re eating store-bought bread!” But that’s a problem that can easily be fixed. Edwards brings in a pan of her rolls, hot from the oven, and the women break bread together. Lucy Chumbley is the editor of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. [Back to index of May/June 2009 articles]
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