Cooking and Imaginations

Dear Friend,

The Christmas season is upon us, I am sitting on the couch watching snowflakes as big as feathers from a pillow fall on to the roof tops. How are your preparations for the Christmas festivities? My preparations have included baking many cookies. So far Mom and I have made 3 different types of cookies.

Today I was making molasses cookies. I had my brown sugar in the bowl, and as I added the molasses, I watched the patterns of the brown liquid as it dropped onto the sides of the bowl and seeped into the brown sugar. "Look at the curly pattern it makes," I exclaimed to Mom. "Hm... so you still cook the same huh?" she replied. She was referring to the way I baked in elementary.

I used to always help my mom bake as a 1st or 2nd grader. Now friend, you must understand that it takes a very patient mother to let her 6 or 7 year old help her bake cookies. Mom always let me add the ingredients to the bowl and mix it, an easy enough task right? Well, it always took me ages because I would narrate stories of miniature villages.

There I am, sitting on a stool so that I could see over the counter and in to the big bowl. First I had to add the flour which created a grand snowy mountain. I would pretend there were villagers who lived on this mountain and they just had a snow storm. "The village of Cookiedom has just suffered a heavy snow storm." Next I would add the sugar, pouring it out on top of the mountain to create a hail storm. "OH NO! The villagers that are trying to survive the heavy snow fall are now hit with a hail storm," I would narrate. Next I would strategically add the milk. "Just when they thought it was all over, a little stream of white liquid appears and turns into a big flood." Then this big medal thing would come and ruin the whole town and even their mountain. "Ahhhhh, the people of Cookiedom are lost forever... until we bake again," I would smile at Mom. Sometimes my mom would take the bowl and start mixing it because my narrations would take too long. To be honest, sometimes I still think of those stories when I cook, but I just say them in my head.

What a funny child I must have been. Did you know that at this same age I once told my Aunty Kathi that I didn't have an imagination. My sister would always go play 'lost children' with Aunty Kathi's daughter. One day I was hanging around the kitchen where mom and Aunty Kathi were talking. Perhaps I was being annoying because Aunty Kathi said, "Why don't you go play 'lost children' with Hannah and Megan." "I can't," I replied seriously, "I don't have an imagination."

Why did I think this? I have no idea. Perhaps because I didn't like playing with dolls and I wasn't any good when I tried to play lost children, but I obviously did have some sort of imagination if I could create a village full of natural disasters while baking.

Well friend, I have to go make lunch then practice for our Christmas eve service.
Merry Christmas if I don't write before then!
I'm thinking of you and hoping you are having a great holiday.

Your friend,
Rebekah E. S.