Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Mudslide Cookies

 

We like to describe situations in life that are less than stellar using colorful imagery, similes, metaphors, idioms, etc. because saying, “This sucks,” isn’t always the classiest choice.

We go from the frying pan into the fire. We stand on sinking sands. We leap from sinking ships. We see a light at the end of a tunnel only to find out it’s an oncoming train. We watch life go downhill from here. We are up that creek without a paddle. We bark up the wrong trees, beat dead horses, and open cans of worms.

Cooking Through Fiction: Lucinda's Secret — Sugar Cookies

Remember that moment when you judged someone too harshly and you realized that person had just experienced the worst day of his or her life, and you suddenly became a Class-A jerk for not “taking a walk in those shoes”? Or the time you complained that your waitress didn’t refill your tea glass often enough, and then she had a breakdown moment when she told you that her fiancé just left her? How about the afternoon when you cursed someone who was driving well below the speed limit, and when you raced passed that car a second later, you saw the driver was bawling her eyes out?

Unfortunately, I’ve experienced moments like these. And so do the Grace children.

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Morning Glory Muffins

Cooking through The Baker’s Man has been a lot of fun so far. It’s been a great reason to get together with the friends who helped me during the writing process. After digging me out of bogs and listening to me bounce around ideas for months, they deserve mountains of sweet treats! Today Jenna and I bring you Chapter 3: Morning Glory Muffins.

Up to this point, Anna O’Brien has felt her heart shatter like peanut brittle, and her best friend Lily tries to soothe the ache with pizza and a bottle of rum. At first, this seems like a good idea, but the next morning, Anna wakes up late for work, and the night before is a blur.

Cooking Through Fiction: The Seeing Stone — Simon's Butterscotch Toffee Skillet Cookie

When I was a kid, I would describe myself as having been mischievous (which I used to pronounce miss-chee-vee-us; is this because I am southern or are others led astray by the pronunciation?). And being mischievous led me to make a few—okay, a lot of righteously stupid decisions.

A few of my less-than-stellar ideas:  Eating Play-Doh. Because Play-Doh has a peculiar, yet tantalizing smell, it had to taste good. It doesn’t. Eating soap. If bath soap smells so good (again with the smells), surely it tastes good, too. It doesn’t. Finger stapling. If you put your finger beneath a stapler and press it, it will—I repeat, it will—staple through your index finger. And it hurts like the dickens.

Cooking Through Fiction: The Field Guide — Spiderwick Macaroni & Cheese

Years ago, Ma bought me The Spiderwick Chronicles series from a children’s store in my hometown because she said, “They were pretty.” And they are. The illustrations are fantastic, and the book covers alone make you want to rub your fingers over the embossed artwork, the gothic font, and the shiny high-gloss finish. During one of my bouts of insomnia, I sat up all night (and morning) and read the entire series. Now, I’ve decided to reread them on my “Cooking Through Fiction” journey.

In The Spiderwick Chronicles series, the Grace children are in for an adventure. After her divorce, Helen Grace moves her children into a dilapidated Victorian home owned by their Aunt Lucinda (who is supposedly crazy). The children—Mallory and twins Jared and Simon—cope in different ways. Simon collects animals like a zookeeper, Jared gets into fights at school, and Mallory parries imaginary opponents with her fencing sword.

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Rum Cake

Continuing with the adventure to cook my way through The Baker’s Man, today I bring you Chapter 2: Rum Cake.

Sometimes your best friend knows exactly what you need when your heart breaks like peanut brittle. Other times, a night of innocent encouraging turns into an accidental disaster in the kitchen, courtesy of a bottle of rum and an enchanted recipe.

Instead of Anna and Lily creating a deliciously sweet rum cake, the recipe causes something else entirely to pop out of the oven.

Cooking Through Fiction: Dracula's Robber Steak

Continuing in the pursuit of cooking my way through fiction, I’ve been reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Within a few chapters, it’s as though a shroud has been draped over the entire world. Sunlight cannot penetrate the darkness, and as a reader tumbles into this gothic realm, one begins to wonder if anything other than flickering firelight exists at all. Perhaps there are only degrees of darkness, ranging from the silvery gray of twilight to the absolute stygian blackness. On the rare occasions when a moon can be seen, villagers are mesmerized, desperate for its light.