A sucker for some challah

About three weeks ago Noah came home excited about an assignment at school. He had to pick a country, write a short paper, find a piece of literature from that country, find a recipe and then make the recipe and bring it in for their Cultural Buffet. From day one he said he would do Israel, his literature was a Hebrew song/poem that Jason used to sing to him when he was a baby, and his recipe was challah. Not any challah. My challah.

I do not claim to be a master of this delightful, eggy Jewish bread and I only make it rarely. A local grocery store makes a wonderful challah and I often buy it there. The problem comes during Roshashana when challah is supposed to be circular. Every year I go to the bakery and ask them if they will make it circular, with no success. I've ordered and bought circular challah from fancy bakeries and it was expensive and not very good. So we started making our own challah.

Noah describes himself as a "bread-itarian" and challah is probably his favorite. He even says his favorite holiday is Roshashana because he can eat all the challah he wants with butter and honey all over it. The boy is in heaven. So I shouldn't have been too surprised when he announced he would bring challah into the Cultural Buffet. The thought of making enough bread for the entire fifth grade to try didn't excite me, and to be honest, I tried my best to get him to change to anything else. He insisted. The approach I then took was to convince him I should buy it. He wasn't thrilled about that option.

Last night I asked Noah if he was upset I wasn't going to make the bread. He said "no, just disappointed." Mother guilt promptly kicked in. He loves my bread so much and thinks it's so good he wants to share it, and I can't find the time to make it? Guess what I did today? All day? You guessed it. The third and fourth loaf are just finishing up now. I'm a push-over.