TheBanyanTree: Baking with Dona

[Monique Colver]

                Now that the Christmas season is officially upon us (now
that Thanksgiving turkey has been reduced to leftovers), my thoughts turn to
cookies. Not just any cookies, mind you, but Christmas cookies, though most
of the varieties I consider Christmas cookies aren't necessarily Christmas
cookies at all, by which I mean, they aren't shaped like Santa Claus, though
by the time Christmas is over I may be. Some years I bake no cookies at all,
and other years I bake a few, but always there is the thought that I should
be baking massive batches of cookies and passing them out to everyone I
know.

                For this I can thank my stepmother, Dona, who at an early
age (my early age, not hers), taught me that home baked cookies during the
Christmas season were not an option, but a necessity. There was no question
that cookies would be baked and distributed, wrapped neatly in Christmas
tins or plates, with little tags proclaiming who the cookies were to, all
being from Dona. Since I was the youngest daughter, I was spent several
years as the secondary cookie baker, second only to Dona in the chain of
command, and during the season we would spend evenings and weekends
producing batches of cookies that we would then store in huge plastic
garbage bags until it was time to distribute them. We made 5 or 6 or 7
varieties, and also included a nice healthy proportion of fudge, just to
ensure we had something for everyone.

                Occasionally we had disagreements about the cookie
manufacturing process. I'd completed several batches after school one day,
before she came home, and when she saw my cookies, which were perfectly
presentable chocolate chip cookies, tasty and soft enough so that biting
into one wouldn't disperse a thousand crumbs in a six foot radius, she said,
"These aren't even done! They're raw!"

                "They're not raw! They're just not cooked to a crisp like
yours!" That was what I wanted to say, but instead I probably said something
like, "You're right, I'm an idiot, what was I thinking?" She was, after all,
the one with the power, so I tended to follow her instructions.

                One memorable year the two of us were both operating with
slight disabilities. I'd discovered an enthusiasm for handball in school,
and my eagerness to excel meant smacking the ball with as much force as I
could muster. Unfortunately, one time I neglected to notice that the
concrete wall was inches from my hand when smacking the ball. I hit the
ball, it went flying into the wall and careening off of it in a monumental
return that my opponent could not match, and he missed it. (Playing against
other girls was for sissies.) I managed to enjoy that moment even while
feeling my hand swell, and then I became aware of the pain. After making
contact with the ball, my hand had made contact, quite forcibly, with the
wall.

                Well, ouch. The school nurse insisted on calling my parents,
and my dad took me to the emergency room. Fortunately I hadn't broken
anything, but it was badly bruised, and they sent me home with it wrapped
securely. "Leave it wrapped for a few days," they said, "and try not to use
it."

                Easy for them to say. We were in the midst of cookie baking
season, after all, and a one-handed cookie baker is like no cookie baker at
all.

                Also at this time Dona had one foot in a cast, having broken
it (the foot, not the cast) in one of her mishaps. I remember several from
my high school years, but since one was when she tripped going up the stairs
at our annual New Year's party, that couldn't have been the cause of this
incident. This one was more likely from having driven through the post
between two of the garage doors, when the garage doors were down. But wait .
. . that couldn't be, since the reason she drove through the closed garage
doors was because her foot was already broken. Ah well, it doesn't matter
now, but she had a cast on one foot.

                And there we were, in the kitchen, me with one useful hand,
and she with one useful foot. Together we made a person and a half, which,
when you think about it, aren't really bad odds. All the able-bodied people
living with us were men, and therefore useless when it came to baking
cookies, so it was up to us.

                She grew frustrated with having to prop her leg up, and I
grew frustrated with trying to roll cookie dough into balls, a task which
normally requires the use of two complete hands. It was obvious my cookies,
which should have been perfect round little butterballs, were going to
suffer, and that was simply not going to happen if I could help it.

                I unwrapped my hand from the bandages. It was still swollen
and black and blue and purple, colors which I am fond of, but not when my
flesh is involved. I held the wrapping up, and I proclaimed myself whole and
complete. I laid it to the side, and I rolled butterballs for an hour. I
couldn't use my hand the next day, or the next, but what did that matter?

                Dona couldn't remove her cast, but I'm sure if she could
have, she would have, since nothing was allowed to interfere with our ritual
if it could be helped. We were warriors. We filled up many big garbage bags
of cookies that year. And they were dispersed in their neat little packages,
with the To filled out and the From reading, "Dona." As the packages sat
alone and unwatched on the dining room table I thought of adding to the
little tags "and slave," but thought better of it, knowing that punishment
would be not only swift, but painful.
                I'd continue, but I have an urge to bake cookies, so if
you'll excuse me now . . .

Monique
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