Operation AFB Drop

9:10am

I have successfully made the drop. But this adventure was not without suspense:

By some marvelous stroke of fortune, I did make it out of the house at 8:15 this morning. This entailed leaving the gym a little earlier than usual, hurrying through my ablutions, and taking the “other” bus to work.

I had to take the “other” bus because I discovered that my camera was out of batteries, which added an unanticipated trip to Walgreens to The Plan. I had a few options:

Option 1: I would normally take the 36 bus, which drops me closest to Dunkin’ Donuts. But if I took the 36 and went to DD, I would have to walk a block past my work to get to Walgreens, and then double back. Not a good option.

Option 2: I could take the 22 bus, which drops me right on the corner at Walgreens. Across the street is another Dunkin’ Donuts, but this particular DD serves burnt coffee. I was willing to make the sacrifice, but as I approached the bus stop, a packed 22 raced past the six or seven people who were already waiting at the stop.

Option 3: I crossed the park to the bus stop in front of the zoo. At this stop, I have my choice of the 151 or the 156. The 151 takes a glamorous route down Michigan Avenue, but drops me off three blocks from work, and nowhere near a Walgreens.

Option 4: The 156 was the perfect choice: it drops me off right at a corner with yet another Dunkin’ Donuts (this one has good coffee, but it’s a whole 4 cents more expensive than the other two DD down the street). When walking to work from this DD, I pass the Walgreens. Perfect.

(And F says I overthink things.)

After Dunkin’ Donuts and Walgreens, I snuck in the back entrance at work and made it up the elevator without encountering any of my co-workers. According to plan, I photocopied the Amish Friendship Bread (AFB) instructions and attached them to the dough bags. Before I even changed into my high heels, I scuttled into the kitchen, hurriedly set up my dough bags, and arranged the AFB on a serving basket.Just as I had stepped away from the bread and was gathering the dishcloth and tinfoil I had used to transport the goods, an intern appeared. She looked at the bread then looked at me. I said hello, perhaps a little too enthusiastically for 9am, and bolted out the door. I didn’t even have the chance to take a photo. That part would have to wait.

I did my morning work routine—changed into heels, stopped in the rest room to fix my windblown hair, turned on my computer, and signed into my e-mail. Only then did I stuff my camera into my pocket, grab my coffee and oatmeal, and head to the kitchen. No one was there! And someone (the intern?) had already taken a chunk of bread.I took some photos and, relieved, made my breakfast. Now I’m sitting back at my desk, eager to know if my bread is being nibbled. I will check back every few hours and document the state of the AFB with photos. Although I do not anticipate anyone taking my four bags of starter dough, the bread is great and it looks nice, too. I anticipate that it will be gone by the end of the day.

9:58am

It has moved! My dough and loaf are now atop the microwave, where first I discovered the AFB approximately ten days ago. One of my dough bags is gone, and the loaf is 2/3 eaten! Hurrah!
This may be the final photo of the day, since the bread is nearly gone and the dough bags obviously don’t make for captivating photography.

10:15am

Only crumbs remain. This concludes the Amish Friendship Bread series.

Amish Friendship Bread

There is a disgusting bag of goop in the work kitchen this morning. It’s runny and leaking out of its plastic bag onto the microwave upon which it has been placed by an anonymous co-worker. A post-it attached to the bag reads: “For the taking,” accompanied by a sheet of the following typewritten instructions:

Amish Friendship Bread Starter Mix
Do not use any type of metal bowl or spoon.
Do not refrigerate; will slow yeast reaction.
If air gets into bag, let it out; also, vent gas produced occasionally. It is normal for batter to rise, bubble and ferment.

Day 1 (Jan 25)-Do nothing; this is the day you receive the batter.
Day 2-Mush the bag.
Day 3-Mush the bag.
Day 4-Mush the bag.
Day 5-Mush the bag.
Day 6-Add to the bag: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Mix well.
Day 7-Mush the bag.
Day 8-Mush the bag.
Day 9-Mush the bag.
Day 10-

1. Pour the entire contents of the bag into a bowl.
2. Add 1-1/2 cups flour, 1-1/2 cups sugar, 1-1/3 cups milk. Mix well.
3. Measure out four separate batters of 1 cup each into 4 one-gallon freezer bags. Keep one starter bag for yourself (if you want) and give the other 3 away, along with this recipe. Date the bags with Day 1 date so they can keep track.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
5. To the remaining batter in the bowl, add:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 cups flour
• 1 large (5-6 oz.) or 2 small instant vanilla pudding mix (or whatever flavor you like, i.e. banana, etc.)
• Any nuts, raisins, chips, etc. that you like, or leave plain.

Grease 2 loaf pans; pour batter evenly into pans. Sprinkle with sugar, if you like. Bake for 1 hour or until done with toothpick test.

There is a handwritten note at the bottom: “This is very yummy bread. Dessert-like!”

Since Day 1 was January 25, the dough must have been up for grabs since Sunday. No one else was going to take it, so in the interest of this blog, I swooped in. I wrapped the bag in paper towels—both to quell the leak and to hide the fact that I was taking it—and hid it in my desk drawer.

When I get my Amish Friendship Bread home this evening, I will mush it, as directed. For the next week, I will document this scary sack of goo and see what comes out of the oven at the end. I’m hoping for some yummy, dessert-like bread.

Today’s discovery is just part of a fascinating ongoing phenomenon called Work Kitchen Leftovers. A whole cultural study could be centered around the foodstuffs people bring from home to pawn off (usually anonymously) on their co-workers. There are the obvious holiday leftovers: Halloween candy, Christmas cookies and Thanksgiving pies donated by the Weight Watchers crowd. There are the leftovers from department lunch meetings: soggy sandwiches, wilting lettuce, slimy pasta salad and, less often, cookies (usually broken but no less desirable).

The most common kitchen offerings are failed baking experiments. I will admit that I have, on occasion, snuck doughy pumpkin bread and dry brownies, artfully arranged in a basket, into the kitchen and watched to see how quickly they were eaten. No matter how bad they are, cookies and brownies go very quickly. Pizza, even cold with congealing cheese, is gone in a flash. But I have found that bread is never popular.

There was a lumpy loaf of “Sweet Bread” last week that most definitely was not sweet. It sat around the kitchen for most of the day, but was gone by 3 when lunch was long over and people were bored and peckish for something—anything—to snack on. One Monday morning was brightened by a vast display of homemade cookies and muffins. All of the cookies disappeared by the end of the morning, but one container of muffins sat on the counter all day until someone took pity on them and threw them away. The honesty of their labeling probably had something to do with this; a note on the container read, “Healthy muffins. Sorry—they taste healthy.” I tried these, and they were truly terrible. It’s unfortunate that for this person, “healthy” meant hard, grainy, and strangely metallic. I think they were supposed to be bran muffins, but I couldn’t be sure.

I just hope the person who baked those muffins is not the originator of my Amish Friendship Bread, because when this recipe is finally over, I know exactly where I will be leaving my three extra starter bags of goo. I wonder who will be brave—or foolish—enough to take them home.