March is almost here and with it, midterms, spring break, and the one-year anniversary of the whiteboard countdown that started all of this. A year ago I was marking off weeks until graduation. Now I'm marking off weeks until... what? Summer? Nothing feels as significant as that countdown did. Maybe because graduation was an ending and this is just... continuing.
Dana and I have started studying for midterms already because we're responsible adults (we're not; we're terrified nineteen-year-olds who remember what happened last semester when we waited too long). Communication Theory midterm is a paper — I'm writing about military family communication again, this time through the lens of relational dialectics, and Professor Whitman would be proud of me for cross-pollinating courses.
Public Speaking midterm is a persuasive speech. I have to persuade the class of something. I'm going to talk about why the GI Bill should cover all children in a military family, not just the one who claims it first. This is personal and political and I know it's good because I get angry thinking about it, and anger is the fuel of persuasion.
Journalism midterm is a reported piece. I'm interviewing three military wives on base about their cooking — how they feed families on enlisted pay, what recipes travel with them, what food means when your husband is deployed. Professor Kim said 'ambitious' in a way that could mean 'too ambitious for a freshman' or 'go for it.' I'm choosing to hear the second one.
Mom made her Irish soda bread this week because March is coming and she starts her 'Irish month' in late February. She's not Irish — she's from North Carolina and her people are as Southern as they come — but she married into the Abernathy family, and Kevin Sr.'s mother was half-Irish, and that's apparently enough for Donna to claim an entire month of Irish cooking.
The soda bread is simple: flour, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, and a little sugar. No yeast, no rising time, no fuss. You mix it, shape it, score an X on top, and bake it until it's golden and crusty. Served warm with butter, it's the kind of bread that makes you wonder why anyone bothers with complicated bread recipes when this exists.
She'll make her corned beef and cabbage in two weeks for St. Patrick's Day. She'll make her potato soup and her brown bread and her colcannon. It's a month-long production and Dad endures it with the patience of a man who knows that if he eats Irish food for thirty days, he gets the rest of the year eating whatever he wants.
Midterms. Speeches. Journalism. The bread is warm. The butter is melting. And somewhere in the back of my mind, a story is forming — a story about women who cook through wars and moves and the quiet, relentless difficulty of military life.
I don't know what to do with it yet. But it's there. Growing. Like Dad's garden in spring.
I don’t know what to do with the story yet — but I knew exactly what to do with the afternoon: make Mom’s soda bread. There’s something grounding about a recipe this simple when everything else feels unfinished and a little overwhelming, and it felt right to have warm bread and melting butter while the bigger things sorted themselves out in the back of my mind. Here’s how she makes it.
Mom’s Irish Soda Bread
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 3/4 cups buttermilk, cold
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (plus more for serving)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 425°F. Lightly flour a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
- Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar until evenly mixed.
- Add the buttermilk. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the cold buttermilk. Stir with a fork or wooden spoon until the dough just comes together — it will be shaggy and slightly sticky. Do not overmix.
- Shape the loaf. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape it into a round about 8 inches across. Place it on the prepared baking sheet. Use a sharp knife to score a deep X across the top, cutting about 1/2 inch down into the dough.
- Bake. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the loaf is deep golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.
- Brush and rest. Remove from the oven and brush the top with melted butter. Allow the bread to rest for 10 minutes before slicing — it finishes setting inside as it cools.
- Serve warm. Slice and serve with plenty of soft butter. Best eaten the day it’s made.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 245 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 45g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 410mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 49 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
