TJ Hirst

We enjoy the legacy of homemade bread at our house. My mother has baked bread throughout her life. Her fresh-baked honey wheat bread with butter and honey on top was as good a snack as cookies. The smell alone was reason enough to carry forward the tradition and skills she gave me. When I married, my mother-in-law taught me how to make her heritage bread—Finnish pulla. Her mother gave her the recipe and taught her to make it, and some day I hope my girls will carry the tradition of bread making to their homes. Now, I combine both our mothers’ arts to elevate our everyday routines. We enjoy a variety of breads throughout the week, and pulla is reserved for Sunday mornings.

Finnish Pulla Bread

1 very full tablespoon active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
2 cups lukewarm milk (scalded and cooled to lukewarm)
1 cup granulated sugar (up to ½ cup more for sweeter bread)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup margarine or butter, softened to nearly melted
8-9 cups all purpose flour
1 whole egg, beaten and mixed with a little water
Swedish pearl sugar (available at IKEA, King Arthur Flour)

In a large bread bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water (105 - 115 degrees F). Add milk, sugar, salt, cardamom, and eggs to yeast mixture. Add 2 cups of flour. Beat with a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer until smooth. Add 3 cups more flour, beating until smooth.

Add the softened margarine or butter, and mix in until smooth. Stir in the remaining flour, ½ cup at a time until dough forms. Knead in additional flour on a floured surface until it is firm and not too sticky.

Wash and oil bread bowl. Put dough in the bowl and turn greased side up. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel. Let rise in a warm space for 2 or more hours, or until double in bulk.

Divide dough on lightly floured work surface into four equal sections. Each section will make one loaf.

Take one of these four sections and divide it into three equal sections. Make it into three long strands of dough by rolling it flat against your palms on the work surface.

Lay the strands next to each other and pinch ends together at the top. Tuck pinched end under.

Braid the three strands to the bottom.

Pinch the bottom ends together and tuck neatly underneath.

Place first braided loaf on a large rectangular greased baking sheet. Repeat with three other sections, putting two loaves on each of the two baking sheets.

Cover the four loaves loosely with plastic wrap or a towel for about 30 minutes until puffy. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, depending on your oven. Loaves should be darker brown than you expect and sound hollow when tapped. (Note: I have a convection oven and bake the loaves all four at a time. If you do not have a convection oven, bake two loaves at a time.)

While loaves are still on baking sheet, brush with beaten egg, on one part of the loaf at a time. Immediately sprinkle with pearl sugar or granulated sugar and sliced almonds while still wet.

(The hot loaves seem to cook the egg, and I use very little, but if you would rather, you can stick it back in the oven for a minute.)

Transfer loaves carefully to cooling racks. Wrap in aluminum foil. Serve, share or freeze until later use. (Frozen loaves may be defrosted on the counter overnight for breakfast.)

Slice, serve, and enjoy. Butter is not necessary when serving, but day-old pulla—if there ever is any—is nice lightly toasted and spread with butter.

Our family experienced spontaneous education and inspiration in our home when Netflix unexpectedly restarted our subscription and delivered Amazing Grace. What surprised me even more than its appearance was the announcement from my husband that our children (ages 14, 11, 9) could watch it with us. I expected that this movie about a decades-long political fight in the British Parliament to end the slave trade would be too mature for them, even though it was rated PG. However, after considering its educational value, we all watched it together that very night, even with school the next day.

Amazing Grace Trailer

On the website for the movie, Amazing Grace, you can share your story of how Amazing Grace impacted you. The movie’s impact on us can be summed up in three words: Questions, Compassion, Inspiration.

An important part of viewing media together as a family is the questions that come to mind and the discussions that follow. The main character, William Willberforce, is full of questions himself about the slave trade. He was taught as a boy in school by John Newton, who wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton had been the captain of a slave ship for years, and he witnessed and participated in horrific acts against the African slaves they were transporting for sale. Newton found God, repented, and became a minister. That inspiring song was like a testimony of his conversion.

As a man, the hymn and education motivated Willberforce’s personal stand against slavery, and he was encouraged by another friend, William Pitt, to make that a political fight, as well. The question for Willberforce is how can he best do God’s work. To persuade his friend, Pitt introduces him to a group of abolishionists, one of which is a former slave.

I could see questions in my children’s eyes as this man, Olaudah Equiano, describes the atrocities that took place on the slave ships. When he told his own story as a slave, he showed the branded mark he bore on his chest and explained its purpose, “To let you know you no longer belong to God but to a man.”

Personally, his words left me with my biggest question: Have I seen slavery just as a historical issue? Or is the resulting pain of slavery so deep that its history continues to unknowingly mark nations and individuals?

Compassion followed the questions and registered on all our faces. In the inspirational moments when Pitt said, “Surely, the principles of Christianity are needed for action as well as meditation,” I was glad that that our children were beginning an education about racial relationships at home.

Just as music stirs my emotions and motivates me to good works, Amazing Grace inspired our family. As Newton expressed, “I once was blind, but now I see” in the lyrics of his song, I considered what cultural or spiritual blindness I might overcome myself so that I might not pass my ignorance along to my children. Passing along this story of faith and perseverance to them certainly inspires our desire and our wills to learn our individual mission and use our resources and talents to pursue worthwhile societal change.

Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, I will be watching the broadcast of General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Speakers will include the First Presidency and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church. I am looking forward to hearing their messages of counsel and inspiration and sustaining a new prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and his counselors. If you are interested in listening or viewing, you may go to this broadcast page.

In a segment on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation this week, an LA Times columnist discussed college women going on spring break trips as a rite of passage into womanhood and a means to build self confidence. In the original article Raunch Is Rebranded as Confidence, the columnist, Meghan Daum, wrote:

It’s young people, women especially, deciding that the way to measure their readiness for the adult world is not in terms of education or emotional maturity but sexual desirability.

This segment has been stewing in my mind in sharp contrast to an inspiring discussion with my sister-in-law, Tina, about womanhood.

That contrast sparked a review of my own journey into womanhood which, ironically, began as a backlash from my own spring break trip that left me searching for more.

Eighteen years of my journey as a woman have revealed that real confidence and beauty in womanhood do not come from the fleeting feelings of affirmation from exploited attractiveness but by embracing and elevating everyday feminine opportunities.

Tina shared with me the song, A Woman of Grace, that she found through her participation in the women’s choir, We Also Sing.

Here’s a clip of A Woman of Grace and some words to consider while you listen:

One of your unique, precious, and sublime gifts is your femininity, with its natural grace, goodness, and divinity. Femininity is not just lipstick, stylish hairdos, and trendy clothes. It is the divine adornment of humanity.

It finds expression in your qualities of your capacity to love, your spirituality, delicacy, radiance, sensitivity, creativity, charm, graciousness, gentleness, dignity, and quiet strength. It is manifest differently in each girl or woman, but each of you possesses it. Femininity is part of your inner beauty.One of your particular gifts is your feminine intuition.

Do not limit yourselves. As you seek to know the will of our Heavenly Father in your life and become more spiritual, you will be far more attractive, even irresistible. You can use your smiling loveliness to bless those you love and all you meet, and spread great joy.

Femininity is part of the God-given divinity within each of you. It is your incomparable power and influence to do good. You can, through your supernal gifts, bless the lives of children, women, and men. Be proud of your womanhood. Enhance it. Use it to serve others.

James E. Faust
Womanhood the Highest Place of Honor

In the song and this quotation I FIND the real spirit and qualities of being a woman. While they are idealized, it is an ideal I hope to hand my daughters of what I have found to be truly desirable.

The words to A Woman of Grace were written by Patricia Holland, wife of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, as a tribute to Ruth Faust, after the passing of her husband, President James E. Faust, a leader in the LDS Church.

The music for this song was written by Merrilee Webb. CDs of the November 2007 performance of this song and others are available by sending $8.00 per CD to Merrilee Webb, 564 S. Thornwood, Salt Lake City, UT 84123.

Birthday parties when I was growing up were a family affair. My mom gave her first and only young children’s birthday party when my sisters, born on the same day only a year apart, received a joint birthday party with friends. I guess she figured that two celebrations for preschool-age children for the price of one would be easier. It probably wasn’t, I’m guessing.

Her philosophy of simplicity stayed with me as I approached how to celebrate my own children’s birthdays, mostly because I am sensitive to stress and these events are known to produce a fair amount of stress.

Birthdays Without Pressure is a website FIND I recommend. Started right here in Minnesota, it discusses the pressure we often feel in our culture to provide large and unique birthday celebrations for children. They “want to raise awareness of this problem and offer alternatives for parents and kids who want birthdays without pressure.”

While my children have hosted or attended a number of birthday parties in our area, most seem to be kept within a reasonable range. But I understand that this is not the case in other places, particularly major metropolitan areas in the United States.

Finding this website is timely—we celebrated my son’s 11th birthday this week. I felt a lot less pressure when I let him plan a simple but fun get together with some friends. He even made the invitations himself the way he wanted them. As I held back my opinions about the way I would have done it, I realized that children want far less than we think they do. Considering that, how much of the party pressure comes from our need to meet more than just the birthday child’s expectations?

Here’s some of what we do to simplify:

We have friend parties occasionally, not every year, more like every other year.

We try to keep the guest list to the number of the age that the birthday child is turning. For instance, a six year old may have six guests. Since we will only invite six friends, usually we have fewer who actually attend.

We host birthday parties in our home so that our children’s friends and family will get to know us and feel welcome to return to our home.

We are learning that we can provide a lot less food to little stomachs. Lunch or dinner and cake and ice cream is often way too much for them to eat.

In lieu of a friend party we will do something fun together as a family, like go to a movie or go bowling, and then have a special dessert at home.

How do you celebrate? It is interesting to see how traditions are often started and continued just by what we see others do. This website and the ensuing conversations can provide new traditions for the birthday culture.