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Authors: David Macinnis Gill
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wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled herself deeper into my mouth.
We kissed for so long I lost track of time. I was only dimly aware of the waves washing over my bare feet. Then I realized that my hands were both on Cedar, and I had dropped my shoes.
“I think,” I said as the kiss faded, “that the lake ate my footwear.”
“The perfect end,” Cedar said, almost breathless, “to the perfect date.”
WEDNESDAY
1
After my morning classes, I did my weekly volunteer work at the homeless shelter. For two hours, we ladled out bowls of vegetable soup and stale toast covered with slices of processed cheese food. For desert, there was apple pie donated by a local grocery chain. The families at the shelter were grateful for the meal. I felt guilty thinking about the steaks Cedar and I had eaten the night before. Especially when I remembered the slice of chocolate torte we’d wasted.
Cedar was right about it being a perfect date, even if it did cost me a pair of dress shoes. That’s why when she texted me with the message: OMG, I didn’t mind replying: DITTO.
I was still grinning at her text when I got back home, where more work was waiting. The stalls had to be mucked, the barn raked, and the straw replaced. When I finished, I was starving, but it was the kind of hunger that could be sated by one thing:
Snickerdoodles.
Mom’s snickerdoodles, to be exact.
Which given the fact that she was mad at me, I had little chance of getting. There was only one solution. I would have to make my own. Cooking was like chemistry, right? You get a list of ingredients, follow the procedure, and eureka! Cookies.
“Cookbook, cookbook.” I scanned the shelf above the stovetop. “Who knew there were so many books on preparing fish?”
It made sense, actually. Cookies were naturally appealing. Making fish edible took a high level of culinary skill.
Fish!
I snapped my fingers. It was the one species I’d not included in my blow fly maggot experiment. All of my subjects were mammalian because humans were mammals. But wouldn’t it be interesting to see how insects responded to non-mammalian tissue samples?
“Mental note: Add fish.”
After staring at the shelf for another minute, I settled on the Fanny Farmer cookbook because the name Fanny made me smirk. I looked up cookies in the table of contents and was delighted to discover a recipe for snickerdoodles.
“The mystery is solved.”
The recipe was simple: Butter, sugar, cream of tartar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and cinnamon. The instructions were straightforward like a science lab. What was the big deal here? With directions like these, what could go wrong?
An hour and twenty minutes later, I took a pan of cookies from the oven and set it on the stove top next to the three glass bowls I’d used for mixing, The bowls were stacked next to a metal dish I’d used for working the butter, as well as the decanter of sugar I spilled on the counter when I burned myself putting the raw cookies in the oven.
I poured a tall glass of milk.
With a thin spatula, I gently lifted the cookies from the pan and arranged them on a clean, white plate. I sprinkled cinnamon on twice because there’s no such thing as too much cinnamon and put the plate next to the milk glass.
Taking a bite of the crisp cookie, I waited for the rich, buttery flavor to fill my mouth, for the warmth to spread over my tongue, and the cold of the milk to harden the dough so that it crunched satisfyingly between my teeth.
“Oh my god!” I spat cookie everywhere. “Paste! It tastes like paste!”
I emptied the glass. Refilled it and emptied it again.
The cookies were totally fubared.
It made no sense. I had followed the recipe precisely. I held a snickerdoodle in the light, turning it over and over. The shape was right, the consistency was right, but the texture was all wrong. It was lumpy and grainy, like congealed cream of wheat. The flavor was worse than the jar of paste I’d eaten in
We kissed for so long I lost track of time. I was only dimly aware of the waves washing over my bare feet. Then I realized that my hands were both on Cedar, and I had dropped my shoes.
“I think,” I said as the kiss faded, “that the lake ate my footwear.”
“The perfect end,” Cedar said, almost breathless, “to the perfect date.”
WEDNESDAY
1
After my morning classes, I did my weekly volunteer work at the homeless shelter. For two hours, we ladled out bowls of vegetable soup and stale toast covered with slices of processed cheese food. For desert, there was apple pie donated by a local grocery chain. The families at the shelter were grateful for the meal. I felt guilty thinking about the steaks Cedar and I had eaten the night before. Especially when I remembered the slice of chocolate torte we’d wasted.
Cedar was right about it being a perfect date, even if it did cost me a pair of dress shoes. That’s why when she texted me with the message: OMG, I didn’t mind replying: DITTO.
I was still grinning at her text when I got back home, where more work was waiting. The stalls had to be mucked, the barn raked, and the straw replaced. When I finished, I was starving, but it was the kind of hunger that could be sated by one thing:
Snickerdoodles.
Mom’s snickerdoodles, to be exact.
Which given the fact that she was mad at me, I had little chance of getting. There was only one solution. I would have to make my own. Cooking was like chemistry, right? You get a list of ingredients, follow the procedure, and eureka! Cookies.
“Cookbook, cookbook.” I scanned the shelf above the stovetop. “Who knew there were so many books on preparing fish?”
It made sense, actually. Cookies were naturally appealing. Making fish edible took a high level of culinary skill.
Fish!
I snapped my fingers. It was the one species I’d not included in my blow fly maggot experiment. All of my subjects were mammalian because humans were mammals. But wouldn’t it be interesting to see how insects responded to non-mammalian tissue samples?
“Mental note: Add fish.”
After staring at the shelf for another minute, I settled on the Fanny Farmer cookbook because the name Fanny made me smirk. I looked up cookies in the table of contents and was delighted to discover a recipe for snickerdoodles.
“The mystery is solved.”
The recipe was simple: Butter, sugar, cream of tartar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and cinnamon. The instructions were straightforward like a science lab. What was the big deal here? With directions like these, what could go wrong?
An hour and twenty minutes later, I took a pan of cookies from the oven and set it on the stove top next to the three glass bowls I’d used for mixing, The bowls were stacked next to a metal dish I’d used for working the butter, as well as the decanter of sugar I spilled on the counter when I burned myself putting the raw cookies in the oven.
I poured a tall glass of milk.
With a thin spatula, I gently lifted the cookies from the pan and arranged them on a clean, white plate. I sprinkled cinnamon on twice because there’s no such thing as too much cinnamon and put the plate next to the milk glass.
Taking a bite of the crisp cookie, I waited for the rich, buttery flavor to fill my mouth, for the warmth to spread over my tongue, and the cold of the milk to harden the dough so that it crunched satisfyingly between my teeth.
“Oh my god!” I spat cookie everywhere. “Paste! It tastes like paste!”
I emptied the glass. Refilled it and emptied it again.
The cookies were totally fubared.
It made no sense. I had followed the recipe precisely. I held a snickerdoodle in the light, turning it over and over. The shape was right, the consistency was right, but the texture was all wrong. It was lumpy and grainy, like congealed cream of wheat. The flavor was worse than the jar of paste I’d eaten in
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