Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Today was my first holiday, the Jeûne genevois, which is traditionally a day of fasting. The curious - or perhaps less curious once one begins to know Geneva - exception is supposed to be la tarte pruneaux (plum tarte). Being the wonderfully good celebrater that I am, I plunked down my francs for a tarte this morning, when my local bakery was open.

The Swiss take family very seriously. In Geneva, shops are closed Sundays so people can spend time with their families. And from what I have seen of people in cafes, parks and along the lake, this is exactly what they do. Restaurants and cafes can be open... as can bakeries, but any other business must pay its employees 50% extra for working on Sundays. This, in a town where shops close at 1900 daily anyway...


As I was told when I first arrived, the Swiss regard fresh bread as an inalienable right. Of course, for a girl who had a "reserve bagel" at St. Elmo's each weekend and whose mother elevates bread baking to an art (see "AliceKaneBread" and pictures of all family children parked on the kitchen table, elbow deep in dough), this seems just right. My favorite is pain multi-cereale, though I have co-workers who swear by the crusty outside-fluffy inside white goodness of pain paysan.

The bread is so good, I find myself wanting to hug it on the way home. I even feed little bits to Desmond as his award for waiting outside the door when I go into the bakery. Somehow, the ritual of going in to a bakery to buy just bread reminds me of so many small, yet life-marking rituals:

• doughnuts at the Walton Bakery on Sundays, followed by burrowing under the covers and reading comics with Jennie;
• waiting for Dad to return from trips to "the City" (for what other city is there, than New York) with several dozen "real" bagels;
• coaxing cold pats of butter and grains of salt onto recycled rye at Leningrad State;
• learning about NYT "No Knead Bread" from Simon, receiving a loaf during a post-Hurricane Ike visit;
• learning that Mom had perfected No Knead Bread to the extent that the O'Learys coined it AliceKaneBread last year.

Bread is a right. Bread is an invitation. Bread loves company (butter, plums, cheese), yet is confident enough to stand (and be eaten) on its own. Good bread is crusty, yet supple, on the outside - soft and welcoming on the inside.