Good Lord,” said Katie. “We’re not supposed to eat that, are we?” And then she burst into tears.
Super. I had made Katie cry for the second time. I put my arm around her shoulders. A slice of chocolate cake would cheer her up. It had almost always worked for me.
I learned as a child that baking with chocolate can take your mind off life. It started when one of the young mothers in our neighborhood, Renee, gave me an old cookbook of hers with recipes for chocolate cakes, candy, muffins, etc. She taught me how to bake.
The walls of her kitchen were painted yellow. The cabinets were blue with handles in the shape of coffee mugs. Red tiles danced along the backsplash. She had a nice husband, three kids, two dogs, four cats, and a lizard that sat on the counter watching her all day. “I’m a hard-core Mommy, Julia. Hard-core. Want me to show you my new recipe book on making crepes?”
Using money from baby-sitting, I started buying my own ingredients to bake when my mother was gone for days or weeks at a time. When Renee got sick on her husband’s birthday, I offered to bake the cake. I whipped up the eggs just so, melted the butter nice and slow, sifted the flour not once, but twice, mixed the dry ingredients with the wet ones a spoon at a time, then watched the cake as it rose in the pan in the oven.
I doubled the recipe for a thick, creamy chocolate icing, then decorated the cake with swoops and swirls—not so much it would look tacky, but enough to give it style.
Renee was so happy when I gave it to her, she blew her nose and cried. I had been sneaking out on Sunday mornings to go to church with her (her husband was a minister), and after that I started baking cookies, cupcakes, and muffins for their women’s brunches, and I became close to the women there. They, in turn, reached back out to me with clothes and friendship and food.
And calls to Children’s Services.
When my mother found out what was going on, we moved again. “They think they’re better than you,” she told me, shoving a trembling hand through her hair, one eye swollen shut from where one of her boyfriends had hit her. He had hit me, too, but had used his fist on my gut so my bruise didn’t show. “You’re their project, nothing more, nothing less. They think you’re going to hell and they’re gonna save you. How could they like you, anyhow? You’re dirty all the time. You never smile. Your hair’s a mess….”
I hid my tears as we drove away from that neighborhood, but the minister’s wife had given me something valuable to my heart and to my soul: a chocolate ticket to life.
Baking with chocolate calms my nerves. There is something about melted, warm, gooey chocolate, and the memories of Renee’s red and blue and yellow kitchen with the ever-watching lizard that reaches deep inside of me. When I have felt despair crushing me into nothing, I have reached for chocolate with one hand, a recipe book with another.
Chocolate, you could say, has saved my life.
The Cheers To Vaginas Tacos, the Fruit Salads For Fruitful Women, the Greens For Clean Secretions Salad, and the hot sauce to cure vaginitis had all been eaten. The strawberry daiquiris had been drunk. I personally had three to make sure that the “woman in me” could escape and explore. We had filled our plates, slithered out of our pants and skirts under the table, and eaten, the candles flickering.
Within seconds we forgot we were half-naked and supposed to be celebrating our vaginas and chattered away. After an hour, I let my mind swerve to Paul Bunyan. I hadn’t seen him for a week. I knew he had worked on Stash’s farm the day I met him, and the next day Stash and his workers were on Paul Bunyan’s ranch, and then Paul Bunyan apparently grabbed his great blue ox and went back to the city.
“Got a big trial that’s going to start in a few weeks. He didn’t tell me what it’s about, but I read it in the papers. Man tried to have his wife killed. Hired a
Super. I had made Katie cry for the second time. I put my arm around her shoulders. A slice of chocolate cake would cheer her up. It had almost always worked for me.
I learned as a child that baking with chocolate can take your mind off life. It started when one of the young mothers in our neighborhood, Renee, gave me an old cookbook of hers with recipes for chocolate cakes, candy, muffins, etc. She taught me how to bake.
The walls of her kitchen were painted yellow. The cabinets were blue with handles in the shape of coffee mugs. Red tiles danced along the backsplash. She had a nice husband, three kids, two dogs, four cats, and a lizard that sat on the counter watching her all day. “I’m a hard-core Mommy, Julia. Hard-core. Want me to show you my new recipe book on making crepes?”
Using money from baby-sitting, I started buying my own ingredients to bake when my mother was gone for days or weeks at a time. When Renee got sick on her husband’s birthday, I offered to bake the cake. I whipped up the eggs just so, melted the butter nice and slow, sifted the flour not once, but twice, mixed the dry ingredients with the wet ones a spoon at a time, then watched the cake as it rose in the pan in the oven.
I doubled the recipe for a thick, creamy chocolate icing, then decorated the cake with swoops and swirls—not so much it would look tacky, but enough to give it style.
Renee was so happy when I gave it to her, she blew her nose and cried. I had been sneaking out on Sunday mornings to go to church with her (her husband was a minister), and after that I started baking cookies, cupcakes, and muffins for their women’s brunches, and I became close to the women there. They, in turn, reached back out to me with clothes and friendship and food.
And calls to Children’s Services.
When my mother found out what was going on, we moved again. “They think they’re better than you,” she told me, shoving a trembling hand through her hair, one eye swollen shut from where one of her boyfriends had hit her. He had hit me, too, but had used his fist on my gut so my bruise didn’t show. “You’re their project, nothing more, nothing less. They think you’re going to hell and they’re gonna save you. How could they like you, anyhow? You’re dirty all the time. You never smile. Your hair’s a mess….”
I hid my tears as we drove away from that neighborhood, but the minister’s wife had given me something valuable to my heart and to my soul: a chocolate ticket to life.
Baking with chocolate calms my nerves. There is something about melted, warm, gooey chocolate, and the memories of Renee’s red and blue and yellow kitchen with the ever-watching lizard that reaches deep inside of me. When I have felt despair crushing me into nothing, I have reached for chocolate with one hand, a recipe book with another.
Chocolate, you could say, has saved my life.
The Cheers To Vaginas Tacos, the Fruit Salads For Fruitful Women, the Greens For Clean Secretions Salad, and the hot sauce to cure vaginitis had all been eaten. The strawberry daiquiris had been drunk. I personally had three to make sure that the “woman in me” could escape and explore. We had filled our plates, slithered out of our pants and skirts under the table, and eaten, the candles flickering.
Within seconds we forgot we were half-naked and supposed to be celebrating our vaginas and chattered away. After an hour, I let my mind swerve to Paul Bunyan. I hadn’t seen him for a week. I knew he had worked on Stash’s farm the day I met him, and the next day Stash and his workers were on Paul Bunyan’s ranch, and then Paul Bunyan apparently grabbed his great blue ox and went back to the city.
“Got a big trial that’s going to start in a few weeks. He didn’t tell me what it’s about, but I read it in the papers. Man tried to have his wife killed. Hired a
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