See ya, Gluten

There were a lot of things that were weird about my freshman orientation, Bible Belt edition, at A&M. First of all, all of the groups were named after the 12 tribes of Israel. So for every large group session, each tribe would come in cheering "RUBEN, RUBEN" or "GAD is RAD."

It was weird.

Also weird was the fact that I even signed up for the weekend, since a) I don't like conferences, b) I don't do team sports, and c) I really hate camp food. You get it. Essentially this was my perfect hell.

One of the ice breaker things we did was memorize everyone in our tribe based on something that they self-identified as a defining thing about themselves. I have no idea what I said about myself. Actually, I have no idea what anyone said about themselves, except for one girl. When it came to her, the one word, the one nugget, her whole self that she wanted to be known as by this gangly group of 18-year-olds who she potentially would interact with for the rest of college -- the word she said was simply,

"Bread."

Bread?

Bread.

She really liked bread. I guess the ice breaker worked because literally every time I saw her for the next three and a half years, her name would sometimes escape me, but I always thought about bread. I really judged her for it then. I mean literally? Bread? Is it really possible to be that obsessed with bread?

Recently, I've realized that I'm not so far from her. A hot mess of thick-crusted sourdough with a little olive oil and fresh ground pepper makes me a little bit weak in the knees. I would trade dessert for a week for that. Or maybe a month.

I love it.

I love sourdough.
I love Ezekial.
I love ciabatta.
I love kalamata bread.
I love it all.

In college, my favorite place for a $2-5 lunch (or dinner, or breakfast) was the one and only Blue Baker. I hid in the corner, between the pillars and the window and set up my 17" Dell laptop that weighed 20 lbs and wrote and studied and dipped my fresh, hot bread in a cup of tomato bisque. In the same way that Christian intro camp felt like hell, this scenario was my perfect heaven.

They baked two specialty breads every day, and you'd better believe that I knew that schedule by heart.

This whole reminiscing is, in part, a eulogy. I've just discovered that I'm allergic to wheat, which may be the most tragic news I've received since, well, ever. And saying goodbye to wheat means saying goodbye to bread for me.

To say this is going to be hard would be the understatement of the year. For one thing, my sister S works at one of the best bakeries on the East Coast, and she's really able to hold her own in the bread department now. Furthermore, it just sucks to have to give up bread. Period.

I guess that all I can hope for is that I'll outgrow this. That happens sometimes with allergies, I hear. Please God.