If you follow my blog, you know that my daughter-in-law asked me to bring a loaf of my homemade challah for Christmas, but here’s the rest of the story:
Challah tastes best if you eat it the same day you make it. By the next day, it is still good, but the quality falls sharply after that. So, if you aren’t going to eat it by the next day after baking, you need to freeze it and keep it frozen until you are ready to enjoy it. That presents a dilemma when it is made in Virginia on a Monday and it won’t get to Boston until Friday. My son suggested we get some dry ice to keep it frozen on our drive up.
Having never bought dry ice before, we were clueless as to where we could even procure any, but just in case it was easier to find than we anticipated, my husband went looking for it in our local grocery store. Eureka! The Wednesday before Christmas we packed our car for our departure at the crack of dawn on Thursday, then headed to the store for the dry ice. I waited in the car while my husband went in to make the purchase. He came out carrying two plastic bags of dry ice and wearing a perturbed expression.
“I can’t believe how expensive this stuff is,” he said as he got in the car. “This cost nearly $20.”
“Yikes! You shouldn’t have bought it,” I said.
“The sign said it was only 99 cents a pound. I didn’t think it was that heavy. I was already at the register and didn’t want to make a scene. Besides, this is for our daughter-in-law. She’s worth it.”
When we got home, we read the directions on how to use dry ice, and were a little nervous about all the precautions. They said not to put it in a container that was airtight because the build-up of carbon dioxide it releases as it melts could cause the container to explode. Was the cooler airtight? Who knows? But how else would we transport it? Visions of the trunk exploding on our way up to Boston unfolded in our heads.
The directions also said not to let the ice come in contact with the food because it could cause freezer burn. If we wanted to keep something frozen, we needed to put the dry ice on top of it, but if we merely wanted to keep something cold, we should put the ice beneath it. How would we keep the ice from touching the bread? My husband had the perfect idea. We would put cans of soda in the corners of the cooler to hold the ice above the bread without touching it. It was almost perfect, except we needed something in the middle for support. I had the perfect idea this time. We would sacrifice the fruit cake we had been gifted. It proved to be the perfect size.
At every stop we made on the long drive up the East Coast, we opened the cooler to let the carbon dioxide out, just in case. We noticed on our first stop that all the sodas had frozen and the cans had split. Dry ice works fast! We also found that our sandwiches, which we had placed in a tray at the top of the cooler, had frozen. But the challah made it all the way to Boston in its frozen state.
As an addendum to this tale of sacrifice, I’d like to add that my precious daughter-in-law peeled and chopped four pounds of onions on Christmas Eve to make the most perfect French onion soup imaginable for Christmas Day. 
The copious amount of onions emitted such strong fumes that my son, stepping into the kitchen, had to turn around and make a quick exit as his eyes began to water immediately. What a wonderful labor of love from my daughter-in-law besides all the other fabulous dishes she prepared for us to make the day a gourmet extravaganza. And I can attest to the pungency of those onions because I sat there in the kitchen the whole time she peeled and chopped them, tears streaming down my face, so I could keep her company. What we do for love.
Coming East 
You are such a sweet mom-in-law, Susan! I admire what you and your husband did just to preserve the challah. I’ve never seen or tasted one before here in the Philippines.
Challah is such a beautiful bread, Yen, and it makes such good toast. And it’s not hard to make, especially if you’re used to making bread.
I haven’t tried baking challah but am now encouraged to do so – oops forgot hopping around a hot oven in the kitchen is not a good idea. I shall wait until I lose the red Santa boot I think.
Do you have a favorite recipe you would share with us?.:)
If I can remember reading your comment, I will send you my challah recipe to your email address. Do you bake bread? If so, I won’t have to put in every little detail since I just have a list of ingredients. If you are not used to baking bread, I will try to be very specific.
Aw, this is so sweet. You have a knack for storytelling, as I’ve read a couple of posts. And you are a fellow winner of NaNoWriMo 2011, I see! Congratulations. Nice to read you…
Thanks for taking the time to read my post and making a comment, Healing and Living. I’ll have to go and check out your site now.
It sounds like quite the adventure getting the challah to Boston! I’m sure every bite was worth the effort!!
FYI, next time you are in possession of dry ice, I had an uncle who was a PhD in chemistry who used to fish little pieces of dry ice out of the popsicle cooler, drop it in a cup of soapy water and watch the “foamy lava” flow from the cup. To the kids, it was awesome!
I hope we don’t have to do the dry ice thing any time soon, Carol, but when we do, I’ll try the foamy lava trick. It will give us even more laughs then we experienced with the Boston dry ice adventure!
Goodness what a curious adventure you all had. I’m glad everything worked out to make special memories of good food and a great family gathering. 🙂
It was actually quite funny, E.C. We were laughing about it all the way up to Boston.
I’ve found wearing contact lenses keeps my eyes from tearing when chopping onions. Never did that many at once, though. Truly a labor of love, on both sides of that kitchen table.
As parents, we all can relay stories like this, can’t we, Patti?
Glad the challah made it! That was smart to read the directions on using dry ice… The French onion soup looks pefect and delicious!
The onion soup was amazing. I don’t think I’m going to repeat the trip with the challah next year, though, Amy.
A wonderful love story……:-)
Isn’t it, Winsomebella?
This is such a lovely story! I would’ve done the same things I’m sure. We have a tradition around Challah: every year my daughter and my son’s girlfriend bake a challah together the day after Christmas! It’s the most wonderful thing to watch and listen to their fun conversations about how to make it and then enjoying taste testing the end result. I always sit in the kitchen while they do it — and I’d do the same even if it meant tears running down my face!
Yes, Julia, isn’t it wonderful to be the mother of grown children? I enjoy mine so much. I’m glad you have such nice traditions with yours.
With your encouraging comment the last time you wrote about baking bread/challah, I would love to try. I will ask for my daughter’s help. She has become quite the baker and cook in her new home. She and sil hosted a New Year’s Eve party. So she was quite disconcerted upon discovering that the shrimp she had bought was not shelled or deveined so…I spent part of Saturday shelling and deveining so she could carry on with the rest of the dishes she had planned.
I do hope you bake some bread, Georgette. It is wonderfully stress relieving. Since I have made bread for years, I would be glad to send recipes, if you’d like.