Wanderin' Thoughts

Daily writing prompt

What food would you say is your specialty?

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My mom walked in the door one day and was all, “I work all day and don’t want to come home and cook for you kids.” Just like that, my sister and I were in charge of the kitchen. We were, like, twelve, I think. We had three younger brothers. This was in the time of latchkey kids, so we didn’t have babysitters. Not very often anyway. We even handled the holiday meals — Xmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and so on.

Obviously, we didn’t know what we were doing; we started out opening up cans of Chef Boyardee or pork and beans — sometimes we even heated them. ^_^ But eventually we found our way around the kitchen. By the time I got married and left, I knew a pan from a spatula. I could even say that I was an objectively good cook. Like, I wasn’t gonna win any awards or anything, but people enthusiastically ate what I put in front of them. Ha!

I found my groove with baking. Even as a kid, I could make a mean cookie. When I had the time and resources, I’d bake cookies by the dozen and bring them to school to share with my friends. One good thing about being in charge of the kitchen… my mom didn’t notice me sneaking stuff like lemons or vanilla into the grocery list.

Weird memory flashback: One time I brought lemon drop cookies with powdered sugar dusting and everyone got the giggles for some reason. My friends were convinced I’d somehow drugged the cookies. That the sugar was something else. They still ate them because they were delicious, but they joked about it for years.

Sometimes when we couldn’t think of anything else to do, and whenever I had the ingredients at hand, my friends would come over on the weekends and hang out with me while I baked. I’m surprised we didn’t blow up like balloons because of all the baked goods we ate. Probably because we walked everywhere.

Anyway, baking was a thing for me far into my adulthood. Every few months or so, I’d buy a bunch of ingredients and go on a baking spree, much to the delight of my co-workers and neighbors. As my kids got older, they helped and shared the spoils with their friends. We’re talking about at least six different kinds of cookies, brownies, and whatnot, with the recipes generally doubled. It took all day. But, hey, the house smelled phenomenal.

If I had to pick one thing as “my specialty” in all that, it would be brownies. No matter what, everyone would ask me about my brownies. And I’ll tell you a secret, between you and me, it’s the recipe from the back of the Baker’s Chocolate box, well, the old recipe. They’ve changed it. I made some minor changes; I added a tiny bit more vanilla and some instant coffee. But that’s it. Maybe I mixed it differently. I dunno. Either way, people always raved about them, and I was all, “It’s on the back of the box.”

Like I said though, those days are long past me now. I could probs still whip up a batch of brownies if I needed to. But the kids are grown and gone and neither Doug nor I are working so the day long baking frenzy would just lead to a mountain of cookies with nowhere to go. I’m watching my weight, you know? Trying to anyway. ^_^

Thanks for reading, y’all. Take care of yourself, and I’ll talk to you later.