Cancer Fighting Foods: Best-Ever Oatmeal Bread ♥

A week ago today, my friend Tricia lost her Mom.

A week ago tomorrow would have been my Mom's 77th birthday. Even before hearing of Tricia's loss, I planned to pay tribute to Mom, as I do every year, by making bread on her birthday.

But once hearing Tricia's news, I knew that after mixing and kneading and tending and shaping and baking and tapping and buttering, I would deliver warm bread to a family raw with loss, gathering with memories, communing with tears and laughter, to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of their own mother.

For my Mom, making bread was a way to feed her family and heal her soul while recovering from a radical mastectomy at only age 35. And when, many years later, she was sick with lung cancer and my family was caring for her, I too made bread, what we came to call Best-Ever Oatmeal Bread, first published in Kitchen Parade in 2002 but online now for the first time.

Many of us are thinking about cancer-fighting foods this month. Mele Cotte, herself a survivor, is hosting an event called Cooking to Combat Cancer. This is my proud entry.

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SO WHAT IS KITCHEN PARADE? Kitchen Parade is the food column that my Mom started writing for our family newspaper when I was a baby. Today it's published in my hometown newspapers in suburban St. Louis and features 'fresh seasonal recipes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences'.

Kitchen Parade features recipes a modern cook can count on. All are thoroughly tested by a home cook in a home kitchen and many are family and reader favorites. All recipes feature easy-to-find ingredients, clear instructions and (because I'm passionate about informed food choices!) nutrition analysis and Weight Watchers points. Want to know more? Explore Kitchen Parade, including Kitchen Parade's Recipe Box!

A Veggie Venture is home of the Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and vegetable inspiration from Asparagus to Zucchini. © Copyright 2007