“I wish I knew how to cook better.” Sophie scanned the contents of another cupboard and then shut the door. “I can bake you into the grave, but ask me to put together a chicken dinner, and I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Then just bake something. We don’t have to have a dinner-dinner. I’ll eat anything.” I watched through the window as a baby squirrel made its way up the trunk of a large oak tree next to the house.
“Yeah?” Sophie put her hands on her hips. “Okay, then. You feel like some biscuits?” I didn’t have to answer. She had already rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and was grabbing flour, baking powder, and salt out of the cupboard. She measured them into a bowl, reached for a pinch of salt and tossed it in. Next, she cut up a stick of cold butter into neat little cubes, poured in a measuring cup of milk, and mashed the whole thing in between her fingers, pressing and turning it inside the bowl. After a few minutes, she dropped a small, round mass of dough onto the flour-sprinkled marble countertop and began pushing it with the heels of her hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Kneading,” Sophie said. She lifted one shoulder, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. “You have to do this to make it soft and pliable. Otherwise the biscuits come out sort of dumpy.”
“Dumpy?” I repeated.
“Yeah, like big hunks of Play-Doh.” She rolled her hands against the now baby-smooth mound, pulling it back with her fingers. “You gotta give it some love, you know? Get all the rough edges out by pulling it a little this way, and then pulling it a little that way. You’ll see.”
My exhaustion faded as I watched my sister work. It was exactly the way I remembered, when I used to sit on the step outside the kitchen at home. Sophie’s fingers flew over and under and then on top of the dough. Finished with the kneading, she pulled and stretched it into a circle, and then started rolling it with a pin. When she got it to a thickness that she seemed to like, she dipped the rim of a water glass into some flour, then pressed it down into the dough, forming small, perfect circles. She brushed each biscuit with a coat of melted butter, and finished with a sprinkling of sugar, then placed the tray in the oven. Her confidence and the way she knew her way around her ingredients filled me with awe all over again.
“I bet you could bake anything,” I said finally, as she set the timer.
“I’ll try anything when it comes to baking.” Sophie nodded toward the oven. “I’ve made those biscuits so many times over the years I don’t even need a recipe. The trick is the butter. It’s gotta be cold.”
“You really do like baking, don’t you?” I said stupidly.
“I don’t think there’s anything else in the world I’d rather do,” Sophie said. She had started washing at the sink; clouds of soap suds encircled her wrists. A soft, floury scent had already begun to fill the room. “I love everything about baking.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy. “I remember one time you told me that your favorite thing about baking was being in the kitchen with a head full of ideas.”
Sophie laughed. “That sounds pretty accurate.”
“What else do you like about it?”
She shook the soap suds from her hands and then leaned against the sink. For a moment she stared out at the fading light through the window, then she turned back around. “I think the preciseness of it. Baking demands an exactness that I love. It calms me down for some reason. Centers me.” She shrugged. “It probably sounds really weird, but I like the fact that when you bake, you have to follow a specific set of rules in order to get the right result.” She wiped her hands on the edge of her jeans. “A lot of people like to cook for the exact opposite reason—if they add too much of this or don’t have enough of that, they don’t have to worry; they can just substitute something else. Not knowing how or what they’re going to end up with is exciting, I guess.” She shook her head. “Not me. I’d rather know right from the beginning what I’m going to get.”
She pulled a dishcloth from her shoulder and began wiping it over the countertop. “Besides, I never feel this way anywhere else.”
“What way?”
“Happy,” she said simply. “I’m happier in a kitchen than anywhere else.”
chapter
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