From the ages of two through seven, I pretty much lived on sourdough bread. We ate loaves and loaves of Pioneer. (I remember thinking the guy on the label was Pa Ingalls, which makes a certain amount of sense I guess.) I had sourdough peanut butter sandwiches that made my jaw ache from chewing. I had sourdough toast with orange juice. And we ate tons of parmesan bread—sourdough bread that was liberally buttered and sprinkled with that Kraft parmesan cheese in the green container then run under the broiler for about five minutes. That stuff was heaven. But like all loaves of bread, this bread had heels, which were generally the least popular slices and I usually got stuck with them as the party with the least power in the household. Again, chewing made my mouth really tired—the heels doubly so. 

But you could only get this bread in California. My grandparents had moved to Chicago around the same time my parents moved to California, and my grandmother lamented the loss. So every time someone visited someone, sourdough trafficking was involved—at least three loaves, two for the freezer and one for busting open that night.

My funniest memory of these transactions was when I was about six. My uncle found a Mustang for sale in Los Angeles and my grandfather (again, in Chicago) decided he wanted it. My uncle and his best friend drove that car with me in it across the country with three suitcases and six loaves of bread in the trunk.*

So we get to Chicago and my grandmother is delighted to see all of us, gives us all big hugs and bustles us into the apartment, offers us big frosty glasses of tea and milk, and then gushes over her payload of bread. Then my uncle says something about “And Arwen is staying for a long visit, so you can give her the heels and none of it will go to waste.”

At this, clear as a bell, she announces to the entire room, “I mean, I love my granddaughter but she’s not getting MY heels of sourdough bread!”

All the adults laughed, but I remember staring at her like she had grown another head. “But Grandma,” I said. “I don’t want them! I like the big middle pieces! Mommy makes me eat the heels.”

(It was the same with chicken drumsticks. I never got to eat those, either, because my mother swiped them before the platter even got to the table.)

My grandmother burst out laughing. “No wonder you like it at Gramma’s house!”** she said. “It’s a deal. You’ll get a middle piece and I’ll eat the ends.”

Eventually we all left California and sourdough bread became a fond memory. Until Panera came along. And there was much rejoicing.

*That was quite a trip. First, there was an APB out for two guys who had kidnapped a little blonde girl that had them feeling extremely conspicuous. Then there was the gas station that we stopped at where I was strong enough to push the ladies’ room door open to get in, but not strong enough to pull it open and get back out. My sadistic uncle sent his poor sweet friend to rescue me, and you never saw a man turn redder about his circumstances. “I’m just grateful to this day that nobody saw me hanging around that ladies’ room door waiting for a pigtailed girl to come out—and that nobody saw me finally open the door and have you blast out like you’d been fired from a cannon.”

**This was not the only reason I liked it at Gramma’s house. I was also a big fan of getting fed Frosted Flakes drenched in honey for breakfast. I don’t know how she put up with me for the rest of the day with a jumpstart like that.