The trailers for the new movie Julie and Julia look so adorable I couldn’t resist first reading the book the movie is based on.  Actually, the book is based on the blog The Julie/Julia Project.  And the blog is based on the life of Julie Powell, a young woman happily married but adrift in life, who finds meaning and purpose by cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  By blogging her progress, by making her self appointed task public, she makes it impossible to quit mid-way through when it gets hard or time consuming.

Reading the book and the recipes of meats cooked in butter and cream, pans greased with bacon and pastas filled with lobster meat obtained through vivesection, I am distracted by thoughts of “Guess I won’t be buying this cookbook!”  I wonder if a kosher version is possible.  Perhaps a young woman named Jennifer will cook her way through Joan Nathan’s classic Jewish Cooking in America thus spawning The Jen/Joan Project.  Although, I doubt it.

Julie Powell lives in New York City and began her journey after learning she would have great difficulty ever becoming pregnant.  It was soon after 9/11.  Perhaps cooking like a housewife from a long-gone era—when one would spend the day cleaning and preparing boeuf bourguignon and dry martinis for when one’s dear husband would bring his boss over for dinner, was a comforting lure.  A romanticized simpler time to escape to.

I had a similar experience.  In mid-September 2001, I was picking up my children from nursery school.  A teacher had baked challah with her class in preparation for the High Holidays.  The smell was at once so delicious and warm and comforting during a time that was far from any of those descriptive words that I asked for the recipe.  And, what began as a fun Sunday morning pre-Rosh Hashana project with the kids has become, for me, a life-changing event.  Every Friday I bake challah.  And maybe, like Julie, the fact that I have made my doing so very public forces me to find a way to bake it every week.  Even on the Fridays it would seem I don’t have time.

I bake it for my family, who are now so spoiled by the taste of homemade they will barely swallow the tiny bite required for motzi over store bought.  But, like Julie’s experience with French cuisine, baking challah has put me on a path, given my life a purpose and meaning I didn’t even know I was missing.

And so when First for Women magazine sent out a query asking to hear from women who bake bread on a regular basis, I wrote to them about my Friday morning challah.  This Tuesday, they are coming to my home to photograph me for the feature they are preparing for their September issue.  I find it fascinating that they selected me.  First is a magazine in the style of Good Housekeeping or Family Circle.  I had thought it a long shot pitching Jewish bread.

But bread is bread—at once the most basic food for every man and, as we learn at Passover, the luxury of the free.  But bread, more than any other food, is home.  And anyone who is fortunate enough to have smelled homemade bread baking in the oven knows this to be true.  Is this why challah baking classes have suddenly become so popular?  I know I’m among a minority of conservative/reform Jewish women who have taken on the mitzvah of challah baking, and yet I see again and again challah classes offered by organizations hoping to help us less observant Jews find connection.

What is it about challah?  Does baking it allow the modern, hip “foodie” in us connect with an ancient skill?  Is it the same reason that Top Chef and Project Runway are so popular?  Or is it the economy that has caused us to realize that cooking at home is not only cheaper but healthier.

True, without the store brand’s preservatives, my challah doesn’t last as long.  But, quite honestly, it tastes so much better than store bought it never lasts long enough to spoil.

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