All sorrows are less with bread. ~Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

This week my joints and legs have been achy, I’ve experienced frequent air hunger, and a veil of sadness weighs me down.

Lyme is testing my patience.

The effects of Lyme diminish considerably when I adhere to a gluten-free/dairy-free diet; when I don’t, the symptoms flare and cause a variety of aches and pains.

Last Friday I had caved into gluten. The culprit: fresh sourdough bread. The accomplice: my Dad.

Growing up, my Mom adhered to meal planning and while meals changed each week, the one night that remained constant was Friday night: “spaghetti night.”

Spaghetti night meant my Mom’s amazing meat sauce. Made from scratch, the sauce would bubble and pop as it simmered for hours on the stovetop. The smell of onion, garlic and other spices permeated throughout the kitchen and the rest of the house.

Each Friday, my Dad would stop at the Boudin bakery in San Francisco and bring home warm loaves of fresh sourdough bread. To this day, I can close my eyes and imagine the feel of the hard, outside crust contrasting with the soft, chewy inside of a loaf of Boudin sourdough. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

On Friday evenings, I would stand like a sentinel at the end of our driveway, waiting for my Dad to come home from work. I was always happy to see him, but really, I was more excited about the large brown bag in the front seat: the loaves of extra sour sourdough sticking out of the bag like matchsticks. I’d give my Dad a quick hello, grab the bag and race back into the house.

My favorite part was the heel of the loaf; it was also my Mom’s favorite. She would pull out the bread knife and slice a thick slab of bread for each of us to share. I’d open the sauce pot and dip a corner of bread deep into the sauce and quickly pop it into my mouth. The sweet tangy flavor of her spaghetti sauce mixed with the spongy, chewy bread caused my taste buds to skyrocket and my eyes would close in delight.

Although my Mom would chide me for eating the bread, she was no stranger to the same love affair and was not embarrassed to admit it. My husband still remembers the first time he met my parents: it was on a Friday night. Immediately after introducing Paul to my Mom, my Mom said to him: “We’re happy to have you over for dinner but there’s no bread because I ate the whole loaf.” My husband and I still laugh about that.

The love of sourdough runs deep in my family. Having to be gluten-free all the time is next to impossible.

Last Friday afternoon, as I stood in my Dad’s kitchen, I couldn’t help but smile as he pulled out a fresh loaf of extra sour sourdough.

How could I say no to my Dad’s twinkling blue eyes as he sawed off a slab of bread and spread it with sweet butter?

The aches and pains after eating that sourdough are worth the trade-off of sharing a loaf of bread with my Dad and reliving “spaghetti night” so many years ago.