Amish Friendship Bread

Or as I now call it... Amish You're-No-Friend-Of-Mine Bread

A few months ago a neighbor came by the house. She came bearing a ziploc bag full of goop and a photocopied sheet of instructions of how to take care of the bag of goop. The paper promised that if I was diligent I could make some delicious Amish Friendship Bread and have enough goop to pass it on to a number of my friends.

I looked at the goop (ok it's technically a fermented leavening agent - like a sourdough starter) and thought about my good friend and neighbor who lovingly shared it with me. What I realized is that she is a neighbor and only a neighbor. We've lived near one another for probably 10 years and I know she loves cats. That's it.

The first few days of parenting the goop are pretty easy, you just mash the bag. It's easy enough to do this as you move it to wipe the kitchen counter after cooking a meal. Then one day I looked at the goop and realized that I had missed the day that I was supposed to do something to it to prolong it's life. I wasn't a day late. I was a week or more late.

I was an Amish Friendship Bread failure.

Fast forward to this week. My sister leaves me a ziploc bag full of goop and photocopied sheet of instructions of how to take care of the bag of goop. I was indignent.

I got her on the phone.

Turns out her good friend and neighbor (wait, only a neighbor) brought it to her. My sister is a little quicker than I am. She didn't wait for the step where it multiplies and you have to find unsuspecting victims friends to give it to, she just gave it to me.

So... today I buried the bag of goop in the trash can. This is it's memorial service.

Let's stop passing this stuff around.

Or at least change the title on the instruction sheet...