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.