Winter Joy Retreat-Day 5: Food and Generosity

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Due to Shabbat and a busy weekend, I fell a bit behind....

Saturday's Topic:
Tell us about food and generosity. Do you remember a time in your past when generosity and kindness came along with food -- whether you were on the giving or the receiving end?

When I first moved to my community, there was a program at the Chabad called Loaves of Love. Women from the community came together to prepare challah dough for baking at home, in honor of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, z"l, who were tragically killed in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008. Rivka used to give challah to everyone in her community, so the way of honoring her memory was to bake some for ourselves and some to give to someone else. That same night, I won a huge bowl for mixing dough. Since then, I've doubled my challah recipe so I can give some to a friend each time I make a batch. Chabad did the same program for two more years, and then it tapered off. However, I still make enough in my batch to give someone a loaf of challah each and every time. I've recently extended Loaves of Love to people at my office. It warms my soul when I can give someone challah and find out that it made their day easier in some way. A while back, a friend even sent me a thank you card when she was the recipient.