At Easter and Christmas, there are meat pies, egg bread and pizza rustica.

The flavorful varieties include black olive, walnut, sun-dried tomato, whole-wheat semolina and an excellent challah, or egg bread, that Mr. Schneekloth sweetens with honey.

A pinch of it, added to the warm liquid when mixing the dough for hallah, will also enhance the golden color of the traditional Jewish egg bread.

Other holiday foods include pan de muerto, a sweet egg bread made in various shapes from plain rounds to skulls and rabbits, often decorated with white frosting to look like twisted bones.

Lacking brioche, the cook could substitute any sweet egg bread, even a thinly sliced white bread sprinkled with sugar.

This hour is considered to be "God's time" and attendees consume hot chocolate and a type of egg bread.

Sunset Hall has egg bread, rye bread and whole wheat bread, but no white bread.

More regional food specialties include Christstollen (Stollen), a sort of egg bread with candied fruit in Saxony, and hot Apfelwein and Frankfurter Bethmännchen in Hesse.

Friday is also the onset of the Jewish sabbath, and that's when I bake challah, the traditional braided egg bread that's slightly sweet.

Once that bakery had sold its last loaf of braided egg bread, anyone who wanted challah had to resort to Chaim's.