{"id":257,"date":"2008-12-17T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=257"},"modified":"2008-12-17T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T10:15:00","slug":"baking-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"Baking Away!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Giving a home-made loaf of bread to all of our neighbors is a holiday tradition. It’s an Italian tradition, too: bread at Christmas is viewed as a gift of life to sustain the family and good cheer.<\/p>\n

When my partner and I built our house, I worked with an architect to develop the kitchen that I had long wanted: three ovens, large cooktop, and a huge island on which to prepare my creations. Not that I am a great chef, but having room to work while enjoying an expansive view of our back yard park, and space for a table for four were also requirements of our design.<\/p>\n

I bought an old farm which was slated for development from the parents of a high-school classmate. I won the bid to buy the farm since I promised to build low-density, single family homes, instead of what could have been: rows and rows of townhouses. <\/p>\n

Since our house was completed first, we welcomed our new neighbors as the rest of the small neighborhood built out by bringing them a baked item of some sort — a cake, a pie, or cookies. Then as we incorporated our Homeowners Association, I was elected President, and my partner and I continued to share joy with our neighbors by bringing each one a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread at Christmas. I love to do it.<\/p>\n

So here I am, with Christmas Carols playing in the background, singing off-key and baking away, preparing something home-made for my neighbors, our friends. We are so blessed to share our neighborhood with people who have a rich diversity of backgrounds, and in a community with a casual and mature kind of tolerance.<\/p>\n

Life is short: show those you love that you love them!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giving a home-made loaf of bread to all of our neighbors is a holiday tradition. It’s an Italian tradition, too: bread at Christmas is viewed as a gift of life to sustain the family and good cheer. When my partner … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}