Spice Bread

not a real recipe. please, please, please don't try it. it's so bad.

When I was old enough to talk but young enough to still have to stand on a step stool to reach the countertop, I wrote my first recipe while spending a week with family at my grandmother’s house in Arizona.

I was very proud of it, and here it is in its entirety —

Spice Bread

1. Open your grandma’s spice drawer. See all those pretty-colored jars? Yum! How are you supposed to choose?

2. Sniff all of the spices multiple times. It doesn’t count unless you accidentally inhale some of the onion powder.

3. Cough.

4. Choose at least ten of the spices with the coolest names and that are the prettiest colors (remember — you are five. “turmeric” is the coolest word ever and, wow! isn’t that a pretty color? definitely pick that one.)

5. Get out a slice of bread and the butter.

6. Butter the bread.

7. Coat the slice in layers of each spice.

8. Marvel at how cool it is that as the spices coat the bread they slowly turn into an extremely pungent blob of orangey-brown.

9. With a smile of culinary pride on your face, put two slices of spice bread onto paper towels and bring them, with much pomp and circumstance, into the living room, where your unsuspecting father and uncle are watching basketball.

10. Tell them all about the creation, and completely miss the fact that, as you talk, their faces are slowly dropping in dread.

11. Hand them the bread. Watch as they eat it and say “Mmm” enthusiastically to make you feel good.

12. Shout, “I’ll go make more!” and run back into the kitchen while they both wave their hands and say, “No, no! We’re full!”

Food is very important to my family. Everyone in my family cooks, and from a young age, I wanted to be in on the fun of tasting an in-progress meal, saying “Hm,” pulling an ingredient out of a cabinet and adding it to the meal, magically transforming the meal from “meh” to “man!”

Don’t worry — I’ve gotten better at cooking over the years. And my love for finding the perfect spice to make a dish pop has only grown. And, fortunately, my skill at choosing spices has too. Usually, I just pick one.

Now, when I cook for my family, my dad doesn’t have to sneakily put the bread behind his back after taking a pretend bite.

Next week, be on the lookout for a bonus email with a REAL recipe this time. Have a great week, stay warm, and thank you so much for taking the time to read this!

Thanks,

Juliana Nicewarner