The Recipe

The Recipe

“This is too much work.”

“Well this is how it’s done.”

“Says who?”

“My mother, when she taught me how to make them, and her mother before...”

“So, she taught you to make the dough for the cookies the day before? Why?”

“Because that’s the way you make them. This recipe has been handed down all the way from her mother’s mother, your great, great, great grandmother!”

“I know, but I don’t understand about making the dough the day before. It’s just dough. I know enough about cooking to know that when you do things ahead there’s a reason. I just can’t see any reason with this. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why do you have to understand everything? Why can’t you just go with the flow like normal people?”

“Do you want me just to be a ‘normal person’?”

“I didn’t mean that. No, I love that you’re so inquisitive. OK, maybe there’s a clue in Grannie Allie’s cookbook. We can go look. We’ll need to be careful though, that old book is very fragile.”

They went together to the bookcase and carefully turned to the cherished recipe. There it was, “Make dough the day before,” in Grammie Allie’s almost illegible handwriting.

“There,” Mum said, pointing to the sentence, “then here, underneath, are the directions and quantities.”

“What’s this up here?” Jen said, pointing to a bunch of scrawled words up top.

“Gee, I don’t know. They’re so scribbled I don’t think I ever read them...”

Holding the book closer to the light, Jen began slowly reading what her great, great, great grandmother had scribbled, above the cherished cookie recipe, over a hundred years ago.

“Be... sure... to... make... the... dough... the... day... before... until... we... acquire... more... laying... hens, or... we... shall... surely... run... out... of... eggs.”