Christie - Messy Baker: More Than 75 Delicious Recipes from a Real Kitchen

I stand on a chair pulled up to the counter. My nose hovers near my mothers elbow as I strain to see everything she is doing. She still towers above me. She is God. With a capital G. She knows everything. She sees everything, right down to the lone chocolate chip that has strayed from the flock. I have witnessed her rescue burnt cookies and breathe life into an inanimate pile of flour. She is indomitable, and her anger, although rare, is to be feared. I will not talk too much. I will not pester her with questions. I will not touch things until I am told. I will be good, better than Ive ever been before, simply because she has answered my prayers and is teaching me to bake.

Her gracious butter tarts shine upon all who eat them and bring them peaceeven when youre mad at your sister, who wont stop nudging your foot under the table after youve told her a million million times to stop. The tooth-breaking cookies from the nice ladies at church do not shine. Maybe the church ladies use the wrong flour. But my mother bakes a cupcake so tender, so sweet, so impossibly good, you cannot cry once you put it in your mouth. You cant be mean or angry or even scared. You can choke if you eat it too fast, but I will eat anything we bake today slowly. I will chew each bite a million million times. As long as she teaches me to bake.

Before we begin, she issues her commandments.

Assemble all ingredients.

Read the entire recipetwice.

Always wear an apron.

Dont eat the batter.

Share with the whole family.

(The last decree makes me wish I were an only child.)

Ready?

She pulls boxes and bags from cupboards above my head, aligning them in order. She reads the recipe aloud and touches each ingredient.

Half a cup butter. Her long, slim fingers tap the parchment-wrapped brick.

One, two, three eggs.

Two cups flour. She rests her hand on a large checkered bag that seems to weigh more than I do.

Clear Pyrex measuring cups with fading red print and a yellow ceramic bowl appear from the cupboards below. She opens drawers and sets a wooden spoon, a nest of metal measuring spoons, and a rubber scraper on the counter. She keeps adding items until theres barely a free spot left. I think I will burst when she produces two aprons. The first she ties snugly beneath my armpits. The hem flutters about my ankles, and if I strain, I can brush the lip of the pocket with my chin. Dont be silly. Pay attention. She wraps the second apron around her own waist, and I bounce on the chair in anticipation, plucking at the apron pocket with my fingers. She looks at me. She smiles and pinches my cheek. She knows I am trying, although I see in her eyes that my 5-year-old best is not as good as she would like.

We begin. She reads the recipe aloud again, this time explaining its meaning. The baking has begun. To keep my hands to myself, I wrap them in the apron, twisting it tight. When Im instructed to tip the carefully measured flour into the bowl, I whip my hands free, letting the apron fall back in place, forgotten in the excitement. She then hands me the spoon, and I carve wild circles in the batter, swirling in one spot like a figure skater spinning on the ice. She places her hand on mine and guides my arm. Her grip is gentle but firm, and I can smell the floral perfume of her face cream. She talks me through the motion.

Place the spoon at the back of the bowl, push it down to the bottom of the bowl, and pull it toward you. Now pull it up and out. Slide it back and begin again. Fold gently, so as not to send flour flying. Gently, so you can feel the tug of the batter. How else can you know if its too thick or too thin?

Fast is for TV commercials.

Fast is for cake mix.

This is homemade.

From scratch.

This is baking.

When my mother turns to check the recipe, I sneak a finger of dough. Without looking up from the page, she warns me there will be nothing left to bake if I continue. I resist further transgressions only because I know she will move swiftly from gentle warning to strict punishment. Another stolen bite and I will be sent to my room. I love the raw dough more than baked cookies, but the thought of being exiled from the kitchen makes my eyes fill with tears. This culinary threat alone keeps me in line.

Together we drop the cookies. She scoops the dough while I scrape the lump from the spoon onto the baking sheet. Not too close. They need room to spread. How do you know how much room to leave? How can you tell when theyre done? When theyre cool enough to handle? Cool enough to eat?

The questions tumble out of me faster than she can answer. To silence me, she hands me the dough-covered spoon. This morsel occupies me for several minutes. Determined to get every scrap, I lick so hard, my tongue hurts from the friction. Euphoric that I ate every speck, I am immediately deflated. She performed a minor miracle while I was distracted and scraped the bowl so clean, youd swear it had never been used. Time to wash up. Why do we have to wash the bowl? Because its dirty. How do you know its dirty when it looks so clean? But she knows. She knows everything.

While the cookies bake, she helps me return the kitchen to its pristine, prebaking state. She washes. I dry and put away. Without looking, she tells me where the measuring spoons live and where to return the bowl. Each item has its own spot. Bottom cupboard, second shelf, far right, beside the Dutch oven. Middle drawer, at the front, between the grapefruit spoons and corn picks. She is indeed the Kitchen God, restoring order where chaos once reigned, feeding the masses and healing the pain of terminal curiosity.

My mother is the Kitchen God. She raised a Messy Baker. Her wisdom still astounds me.