The Time I Accidentally Bought 25 Pounds of Flour is a laughable memory. Let me begin my story by sharing the backstory. During the recent pandemic, I thought I was getting a great price for a bag of flour. My same-day grocery store had flour in stock and my regular store was out of stock. Because I placed my order online, I was unaware of the physical size of the flour bag.

(image: Unsplash)

The price for Miller Milling All Purpose Flour seemed great at $9.35. Until the delivery arrived to my front porch. As my husband carried in the groceries, I heard a snickering laugh. And then with amusement, we both realize what I had done. In “saving money” I accidentally purchased a 25 pound bag of flour! Restaurant quality.

This became a challenging problem for two reasons. First, the 25 pound bag of flour was too large for my kitchen cabinets. What will I do with this beast? Second, we were in a quarantine and unable to entertain people at home. And so I needed to be creative with my 25 pound blunder.

Looking through my same-day bargains, I found 500 food prep gloves. It seemed they would now come in handy. Slipping my triple washed hands into the food gloves, I divided up my flour into gallon bags. Then I started asking neighbors if they need a bag of flour. Many said yes!

Wearing my protective face gear and putting food gloves on my hands, I carefully placed bags of flour on their porches. Then I sent everyone a text message and identified the white powder in the bag. Embarrassing, as I was just trying to solve a storage problem.

Two days later, I get a text from a neighbor. “We made cinnamon rolls today, do you want some?” Of course, I said yes!

One more day, another neighbor. “We made lemon scones today, can I put some in your mailbox?” Well, yes!
At this point I no longer had self-control over gluten (and inflammation). Pandemics will do this, I have since learned.

Soon I found myself baking my “pandemic bread” and delivering loaves to my neighbors. After a tree fell in a storm, I put pandemic bread on their porch. During a 2-day power outage, I delivered pandemic bread (baked in advance) to every neighbor for breakfast.

And when my college kid was driving back to her dorm, I placed three pandemic breads into her care package. According to her roomies, the home-baked bread was “fantastic!”

(image: Christine Abraham)

It was madness, this gift of bread!

When a neighbor called me “Florence Nightingale” for delivering bread to people in a storm, I knew I needed to stop. My reputation was exceeding my desire to make any more bread! And the gluten inflammation was making me swell up like a blowfish.

Finally, six months later, I used up my 25 pounds of flour. And so I humbled myself and bought a small 5 pound bag for my cupboard. Life seems to be returning to normal, again.