It was fitting, really, that it happened yesterday while I sat, deep in the cushions of the couch, reading A Homemade Life, the new memoir/cookbook by Molly of Orangette, one of my favorite food writers.
The book was a delight to read, which I knew it would be, being that Molly wrote every word in it. But there was something equally delightful going on in my kitchen, just around the corner from where I sat. A boy was in there making Butterscotch cookies all by himself. By himself! Well, he did have the red-checked nanny assisting any way she could, but other than that, he was on his own.
On his own.
By himself.
Free-wheeling.
Baking in the kitchen.
For the first time.
I couldn't believe it was really happening, just like when I watched him waddle out his first baby steps. The mama in me wanted to skip into the kitchen with him; to hover, to instruct, to guide, or maybe just to watch. But I didn't. Because the mama in me knew he needed to whistle and bake and make a mess in there all by himself. We both needed to know that he didn't need me.
And he didn't, except for the one minor glitch of accidentally putting in twice as many eggs as the recipe called for (ah, the all-important lesson of making sure you read the ingredients from the recipe you're working from, not the recipe printed above it!), but, really, it wasn't anything another cup and a half of flour couldn't fix.
The cookies were delicious, something like a chocolate chip cookie without the chocolate. Butterscotch-y, I'd say. Their irregular shapes were so fitting, I thought, and when you set a wabbly stack of them on a plate, you had to go right away and pour a tall glass of milk to go with them.
The boy even cleaned up the kitchen in a nine-year-old sort of way, which was perfect. I agreed to pull the last batch from the oven at the beep of the timer. Then, with a fistful of freshly baked cookies for his neighborhood friends, my baking boy dashed out the front door.
Somehow I knew this was just a beginning.
