Thank You to the Woman Who Taught Me Bread

To Mrs. Kowalski, wherever you are:

You lived upstairs from my family when I was ten, in our apartment in Cleveland. Every Saturday, you baked bread, and the smell drifted down the stairwell and made the whole building hungry.

One Saturday you saw me standing in the hall and invited me in. You showed me how to knead the dough, push and fold and turn. You let me punch it down after it rose, which was the most satisfying thing I'd ever done. You sent me home with a warm loaf for my parents.

We baked together every Saturday for three years. I'm forty now. I bake bread every weekend with my own kids. I teach them to punch it down. They love it as much as I did.

I don't know where you are now. I just wanted you to know your bread is still rising, in a kitchen in Oregon, every Saturday.