This is the first recipe I learned from my grandmother, who, in the tradition of old-world grandmothers, never used a recipe or measured anything. When I asked her to tell me how she made her challah, she told me she used flour and eggs and "all good things" (said good things never specified). She agreed to show me how she made the challah, and displayed great patience and some amusement (as a child I required quite of bit of the former and inspired quite a bit of the latter) as I "helped," mostly by scurrying around catching everything she used to measure things with the closest object to a measuring cup I could find -- a jelly jar she'd saved and reused for more years than I'd been alive. And voila -- or voila-ish, as it took me some time to get the recipe right, or as right as I could make it. I've been making this for over half a century, and I think I'm still working on it. No one could cook or bake like my grandmother. <br />This is a recipe for lovers of crispy crust. It is not what many of us think of as challah today -- brioche-like loaves, commercial loaves with the texture of cotton candy. It is not as rich as many challahs, and does not keep as well. Best to make ahead and freeze if you want it to keep for some time. But it is wonderful. It is the taste of "all good things."

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