Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: DELICIOUS (02/04/16)
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TITLE: The Critic | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Warren
02/09/16 -
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She said exactly what she meant and meant exactly what she said. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I was sure her criticisms could singe eyebrows. She didn't mince words - yes, that was a pun. Her negative directness usually hurt. And I'm not sure she had ever given anyone a compliment. I was sure if she did, the sky would fall. Okay, maybe not, but time might stand still - if only in my mind.
I was in the midst of my annual Christmas baking. Each year my mission was to make my grandmother's sour cream pound cake so well that people would say, "This tastes just like Weezie's."
My grandmother, Louise Marie Grantham Leyfield, known as Weezie by all who knew her, had died during the fall of my first year of college. I had gone home for her funeral but I didn't truly feel her absence until I went home for Christmas break. At the risk of sounding like a self-centered, immature teenager, I must admit that what I missed most was her baking. Not the goods per se, but the memories, the baking process.
From the time I was about four, I would help her. Each year she would show me something new to do - until I got to the point that I was actually helping. As I got older, I took note of everything. Each ingredient. Each nuanced "measurement." Just the right number of stirs. Just the right amount of beating. The way she tested the consistency of batters by sight. The way she knew the ingredients were balanced by smell. The way she knew when things were done by touch.
A few years before she died, she began to let me take the lead. Hearkening back to her years as a third-grade teacher, she coached me with questions. How do we start? What should be done next? What should be added next? How was the consistency? How did I know? How did the cake feel when it was done? When did crispy cookies turn into burned ones?
As each thing came out of the oven, we would sniff and touch. After each thing cooled, we would taste. "Mmmmmm," Grandma Weezie said when she approved.
When I didn't get it right, her approach was constructive and instructional. Once again she would ask me questions. What do you think? Is there a little too much something or a little too little something? And then we would bake the ones that weren't quite right again. Her patience was endless. She was grooming me to be a baker like her. And I was an eager and willing student.
So here I was 14 years later. I had spent yesterday baking two full-size sour cream pound cakes for dessert and 30 miniature ones as gifts. Today was judgment day. I would take the cakes to Christmas dinner tonight and willingly (mostly) endure post-dinner judgment from Aunt Lily.
Aunt Lily would do her annual critique. "It's not right." "You've got a long way to go." "This is worse than last year." "You'll never be the baker Weezie was." And I would cringe inside.
Sure, I put far too much stock in what Aunt Lily thought. But I had been trained at the hand of Grandma Weezie. Was I that bad?
Dinner was over and my dad, ever the proud father, announced dessert. "Who's ready for sour cream pound cake?"
It was time for the verdict. Mom and I had sliced the two full-sized cakes and brought the slices into the dining room on individual plates. I'm sure my hand was shaking as I placed a plate in front of Aunt Lily.
We all took a bite. Then everyone looked at Aunt Lily. She looked at no one. She took a second bite. I raised my eyebrows and glanced at my dad. His eyes grew wide; he winked at me and smiled. Silence from Aunt Lily. The rest of us resumed eating.
"Mmmmmm."
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