Wild Rice Bread with Sunflower Seeds — The Brown Bread on the Gravlax Plate

The kitchen is teaching me, again, what it taught me when Paul died: cook anyway. Eat anyway. Continue anyway. The kitchen is patient. The kitchen does not care that I am tired. The kitchen does not care that I am sad. The kitchen says: turn the stove on. Heat the oil. Chop the onion. Begin. The kitchen has always been the wisest member of this household. The new Sven (Sven the Second) is six months old now. He chewed through my favorite shoe. He jumped on the kitchen counter. He is the worst-behaved dog Duluth has ever produced. I love him completely. He has the energy of a small storm. He is the right thing for the kitchen right now. The first Sven was a steady ocean. This Sven is a storm. Both are necessary in their seasons. Sophie called. Her voice was thick. She said she was sorry about Mamma. She said she had been trying to type a text for an hour and could not. She called instead. We did not say much. We did not need to. Sophie has been to enough funerals at this point to know that the calls after are not for words but for the audible presence of a person on the other end of the line. The presence is the love. The presence is the bridge. I cooked Gravlax with mustard sauce this week. Salmon cured for two days in salt, sugar, and dill. Sliced thin. Served with a mustard-dill sauce and brown bread. The Swedish standard. The Damiano Center on Thursday. The pot was bigger than usual — fifty-five gallons. The crowd was bigger than usual. The need does not respect the calendar. There is no holiday from hunger. There is no week off from the soup. We make the soup. They come for the soup. The pattern is reliable. I thought about my own mother today. The full thought of her — Mamma at thirty in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma at sixty in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma at ninety in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma in hospice in 2024 with her eyes closed and her hand in mine. The full arc of a person fits in a single thought, sometimes, if you let it. The thought is the inheritance. The thought is the visit. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. The Damiano Center has changed slowly over the years. The director has changed three times in the period I have volunteered. The volunteer roster has rotated, with new faces every year. The pot — the actual physical fifty-gallon stock pot — has been replaced once. The recipe has not changed. The recipe is a constant. The constancy is the gift the recipe gives to a place where so much else is in flux. The phone rings less than it used to. Not because fewer people are calling, but because the people who call are mostly the family, and the family has settled into a rhythm — Peter daily, Anna twice a week, Sophie weekly, Elsa biweekly, Karin Sundays, Astrid Sundays. The phone rings predictably. I pick up predictably. The predictability is the love at this stage of life. It is enough.

The gravlax is nothing without the bread beneath it — that is the part of the meal people forget to mention. My mother knew this. She always made her own. This wild rice loaf, nutty with sunflower seeds and dense enough to hold the weight of cured salmon and mustard sauce, is what I slice thin and lay out on the board alongside it. Wild rice is as Minnesotan as the cold, and there is something right about putting it in the bread when you are feeding grief in Duluth in April.

Wild Rice Bread with Sunflower Seeds

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 3 hrs (includes rise time) | Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked wild rice, cooled
• 1 1/4 cups warm water (110°F)
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more for kneading
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds, divided
• 1 egg white, beaten (for topping)

Instructions

1. Proof the yeast. Combine warm water, honey, and yeast in a large bowl. Let stand 5–10 minutes until foamy.
2. Mix the dough. Add olive oil, bread flour, whole wheat flour, and salt to the yeast mixture. Stir until a shaggy dough forms. Fold in the cooked wild rice and 1/3 cup of the sunflower seeds.
3. Knead. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 8–10 minutes until smooth and elastic, adding flour a tablespoon at a time if sticky. The wild rice will make the dough slightly tacky — that is normal.
4. First rise. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean towel, and let rise in a warm spot 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until doubled.
5. Shape. Punch down dough and shape into a tight oval loaf. Place in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
6. Second rise. Cover loosely and let rise 45 minutes, until dough crowns about 1 inch above the pan rim.
7. Top and bake. Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush top of loaf with beaten egg white and scatter remaining sunflower seeds over the surface, pressing lightly to adhere. Bake 33–37 minutes, until deep golden brown and hollow-sounding when tapped on the bottom.
8. Cool. Transfer to a wire rack and cool at least 30 minutes before slicing. Slice thin for serving alongside gravlax.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 30g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 295mg