Gingersnaps and Dog Hair

Our mixer is on the kitchen counter and ready for duty today. My wife is a blur behind it, pulling out measuring cups, baking pans, and containers of sugar, flour, and eggs. In front, our old cookbook is opened and turned to the desserts section.

The page she’s referencing is semitranslucent from absorbing splattered drops of shortening from the past 20+ years, and the directions are partly covered by clumps of dried cinnamon and molasses. I imagine if I brushed away the dog hair then baked the page in the oven at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes, it would taste delicious.

They’re not all like this. The meatloaf page is spotless, for example, and there’s an entire chapter dedicated to cooked vegetables that looks untouched.

Or, more precisely, unloved.

It’s not that we don’t ever eat green beans or other similarly terrible foods – my wife, in fact, occasionally insists on it – it’s just that we drift towards better options. Like ones that taste great after dinner. And before dinner. And during dinner. Ones we’re not embarrassed to share at holiday parties or church potlucks. And especially ones that require all of us to gather in the kitchen to help measure and stir and taste.

That’s where things get messy, there in the gathering. Molasses gets spilled. Shortening gets splattered. Tears fall and laughter spreads. It’s where families flourish. Where stories are embellished and shared. Where minutes give way to decades and the sugary fingerprints of children give way to the sugary fingerprints of grandchildren.

And it’s where kitchen mishaps permeate the pages of an old cookbook, transforming it into something more: The story of us.

Messy.

Resilient.

And covered by dog hair.