By January 2026, and the new year opens with the anticipation of the baby — due any day, the phone on the nightstand, the bag packed, the drive to Columbia rehearsed in the mind the way a cook rehearses a recipe: you know the steps, you know the timing, you know that when the call comes you will drive and you will arrive and you will hold the baby and the holding will be the beginning of the next thirty years.
The Librarian's Table has been well received — reviews in Southern Living, mentions on NPR's books podcast, the particular attention that a second book receives when the first book earned its audience and the second book rewards them. The rewarding is the sales, and the sales are the validation, and the validation is the life of a woman who writes about food and books and who considers the writing the life and the life the writing.
I have been preparing the guest bedroom for the baby's first visit — the cherry-wood cradle in place, the changing table (Robert's latest project), the children's books on the shelf. The room has completed its transformation: from Mama's room to an empty room to a baby's room, the progression being the life's arc condensed to a single room, the arc that goes from death to emptiness to new life, the progression that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and both are true, and both are the room.
I made she-crab soup. The Sunday soup. The weekly anchor. The practice that does not change because the change is everywhere else — the baby coming, the book selling, the blog growing — and the not-changing of the soup is the stability, the stability is the faith, and the faith is the soup.
She-crab soup is the Sunday anchor, but when the week stretches long and the bag is already packed by the door and the cradle is already made up with the softest blankets, I find myself reaching for bread — something that rises without waiting, something I can measure and mix and pull from the oven in the same hour I began it. Irish soda bread has been my companion through every season of waiting: it asks nothing of you but a bowl and a warm oven, and it gives back something solid and fragrant and real, which is everything you need when the rest of life is gloriously, terrifyingly uncertain.
Irish Soda Bread with Raisins
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 1/2 cups raisins
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tablespoon caraway seeds (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan or a cast iron skillet and set aside.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and baking powder until evenly combined.
- Cut in the butter. Add the cold butter pieces and use your fingertips or a pastry cutter to work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining.
- Add the raisins. Stir in the raisins (and caraway seeds, if using) until distributed throughout the flour mixture.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk and beaten egg. Pour into the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon just until a shaggy dough comes together — do not overmix.
- Shape the dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead 4 to 5 times until it just holds together. Shape into a round loaf and place into the prepared pan. Use a sharp knife or bench scraper to cut a deep X across the top of the loaf, about 1 inch deep.
- Bake. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The loaf should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Cool and serve. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm with butter, or at room temperature sliced thick alongside soup or tea.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 340 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 480mg