I don’t bake and I don’t bowl. The reason: I suck at both. Seriously, I do. My grandma, on the other hand is an excellent baker and bowler.
”All you have to do is swing your arm in a straight line and let go of the ball,” she would say after dragging me bowling as a kid. “It’s so easy.” To prove it, she tippy, tippy, tippy toed down the ally and performed a demonstration which usually ended in a strike. “Now, you try,” she sing songed. (I’m sure I rolled my eyes at her, because that’s what I do. Just to let you know, I’m quite an accomplished eye-roller. I consider it one of my greatest God given gifts.)
Several gutter balls and a score of 49 later, my grandma was so annoyed. “Maybe you need a lighter ball,” she suggested. “Maybe the holes are the wrong size for your fingers,” she said. “Maybe you’re swinging your arm across your body instead of straight,” she offered.
After years of suggestions, she gave up trying to make me a better bowler. And it took about the same number of years before she gave up trying to make me a better baker, too.
“Any one can bake,” my grandma would say. “All you have to do is follow the directions.”
Growing up, I watched my grandma bake a bunch. You name it and she baked it: pies, cookies, lemon bars, and cakes. She made something sweet from scratch every week and every week I was there to ‘help.’ You would think after apprenticing under her for all those years I’d be an excellent baker. I’m not.
I don’t get baking. Why do you have to mix dry ingredients separate from wet ingredients? Why do you have to sift flour instead of sugar? Why do cookies keep baking after you take them out of the oven? I don’t get it.
Unfortunately, it’s my friends who will suffer from my serious lack of baking skills this holiday season. I’ve been invited to not 1 but 2 cookie exchanges this year. I baked 3 dozen snickerdoodles tonight for my first exchange tomorrow and I’m being kind when I say the cookies suck.
“They’re not bad,” David said after choking one down. “They just don’t taste like anything.”
I followed the directions. I didn’t burn them. They’re even light and fluffy. As David kindly put it, they just don’t taste like anything. My grandma would tell me I just to practice, but I’ve practiced for at least 20 years. How much practice does it take?
I think for my second cookie exchange in a couple weeks, I’ll do my friends a favor and buy from a bakery. I think at this point, even my grandma would agree.
Related posts:
- My Thanksgiving Post May Be Late, But At Least My Christmas Shopping is Done.
- One For You. Two For Me.
- The Letter From Christmas 2002
- The One About Santa 2010
- Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!
Tags: cookie, cookie exchange, grandma
Man, can I relate. Last night I made an attempt at DH’s favorite cookies – his grandmother’s recipe no less. Let’s just say the icing either completely hardened before I could get it on the cookie, or it dripped off the sides and made a giant, sticky puddle on the countertop. We’ll get the hang of it someday? (Maybe!?!)
okay, we’re breaking up.
i mean, no bowling or cookies?
dude.
1. Snickerdoodles often don’t taste like much, it’s the recipe, not you.
2. I do bake and I NEVER sift and nothing super bad has ever happened.
3. I hate cookie exchanges, I have to do lots of work and end with lots of things I shouldn’t be eating. Sigh.
4. I went bowling 2 weeks ago with my girlfriends, I bowled a 42.
5. Have I told you how pretty you are today? (love the new banner)
Well if it is any consolation, I don’t think snickerdoodles generally have that much taste anyway. I think it is all the sugar and cinnamon on top that adds the flavor. They do look good. There is always the “cookie” mixes at the store you can try if you don’t want to go the bakery route.