Friday Mishmosh

Mina came to the breakfast table this morning with a dollar bill and said, "I'm going to show you a magic trick I saw." I swiveled towards her and watched. She folded the dollar into a little bitty tight square, showed it to me, tapped it, then unfolded it to reveal the exact dollar, facing the same exact way. She looked down at the dollar when my face revealed that I was still waiting for an end result. She said, "Oh man, how'd he get that to work?" I said, "What was supposed to happen?" She said, "It was supposed to turn into a hundred dollar bill."  I just want to innocently report that I still love the thought of baking. The idea of sitting down to cinnamon cake and tea, or the waft of blueberry pie nearly done, the image of a mound of rosewater cookies under a clear, dome cover or eyelet aprons and steel whisks and flower-patterned oven mitts . . .it all makes me swoon still. But I haven't baked lately. I had to give up the eating of it all -- the testing and perfecting --and the ragey after affects; even if the affects were only safely swirling wildly within my mind and body. I didn't even bake for Valentine's Day, which is kind of unthinkable, but since I'm in hardcore training mode I couldn't bring myself to go back, and now I just fondly reminisce about when baking and I were in love. We may still have trysts now and again. Loves like that die hard. However, I've been teaching Maya how to bake. She requested this last year and for Christmas I got her a set of utensils and some equipment she could call her own. I shoved over some pans in a cupboard for her things. She's been baking away, a perfect student. I'll test her things a tiny bit, but not much. I see the effort she put into it. I see the finesse building. She'll be a fine baker.