By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Most people move to Brooksby with the expectation of spending little time in  the kitchen; there are four restaurants and a pub right on campus. But Ann Ettlinger made sure to choose the apartment home with the biggest kitchen.

“The first thing my daughter asked when I said I was moving to Brooksby was,  Is your kitchen big enough so you can bake?’” Ettlinger recalls. Thankfully for the community, it is.

Pastry proliferation
As a child growing up in Austria, Ettlinger would often take over stirring while her mother baked. As a married adult, having picked up her mother’s pastry know-how, Ettlinger indulged her own family’s collective sweet tooth.

Nowadays, she bakes challah bread for Brooksby’s biweekly Jewish services, a tradition that began five years ago with the help of the New England weather.

Before the Friday service, someone would head to a nearby bakery to pick up challah, Ettlinger says. But “that afternoon it was icy and snowy and nobody wanted to go out and get it,” she recalls, “so I offered to bake it.” Ettlinger hadn’t baked challah before she went online to find a recipe that day. “And I’ve baked it ever since,” she adds.

One Friday each month, Ettlinger awakens around 6 a.m. to start baking for the two services, which attract around 50 people each. The process takes about four hours because the bread must rise three separate times, but Ettlinger says it’s fairly simple. “Challah-making isn’t that much work,” she insists, wondering what the fuss is about.

Though her recent claim-to-fame is her challah, Ettlinger can be seen lending a  hand in many other parts of the community. A skilled artisan, she makes clay beaded jewelry and has taught other Brooksby residents to do the same. She also knits prayer shawls and lap blankets.