“This is the only pound of butter I have,” Doreen said, looking at Nan.
“Well, it will be gone now then,” Nan said, with a laugh.
Doreen winced. “It’s expensive.”
“All food is expensive,” Nan reminded her. “You must spend money to live.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t got very much though,” she said, with a quirk of her lips.
“But you have enough,” Nan said. “Or at least I hope you do.” And she turned, and her gaze pierced Doreen’s heart.
“I’m fine,” she said immediately.
Nan obviously wasn’t convinced, but she let the subject drop. And, with that, they returned to the idea of a pound cake. Nan said, “I’ve got the recipe in my head, if you like the lemon and poppy seed version.”
“You know I do, but,” Doreen said, “that means I must write it down. Otherwise, it’ll get lost soon.”
“The idea is, you’re supposed to memorize it.”
“Well, if we count on my memory,” she said, “we’ll never save that sucker.” She ran, got her notepad, and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”
At that, Nan grinned and said, “You need a mixing bowl, a whisk, eggs, butter …” and she kept going on and on, and pretty quickly Doreen was overwhelmed.
“Stop. Go back to the simple stage.”
“Fine, get a measuring cup and put five eggs into it.”
Doreen grabbed her large measuring cup, went to the fridge, and pulled out five eggs, put them in the measuring cup, then put the carton back in the fridge. She turned, set the cup on the counter, and looked at her grandmother expectantly and said, “Next?”
Nan looked at her, looked at the eggs in the measuring cup, then back at Doreen’s face. “Okay, so we need to go back to the real basics.”
Doreen’s eyebrows shot up. “I said that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but it’s not quite the same as a visual reminder,” she said, pointing to the measuring cup.
Doreen looked at her and asked, “What did I do wrong?”
“You must crack the eggs first, dear.”
Doreen winced and said, “Ouch, okay, that was a real beginner mistake.”
She reached for the measuring cup, pulled out the eggs, put them on a tea towel, and quickly cracked and dumped the contents into the measuring cup. After that, Nan led her step by step through the process. And the next half hour was sheer fun as they blended the ingredients, whipped up the butter and the sugar, added in the flour and the eggs, and then the lemon juice and poppy seeds.
When she filled the pans with the beautifully whipped fluffy cake batter, Doreen asked, “So, what’s next?”
“It goes in the oven,” Nan replied.
At that, Doreen stopped and looked at her.
Nan stared at her. “Did you put the oven on to preheat?”
She immediately shook her head.
“Oh, dear. We should have done that first,” Nan said, walking to the oven. “Come over here, and turn it on. Oh, let’s see. I would say, probably 375 for this.”
Doreen bent down in front of the oven and stared at the dials.
“What’s the matter?” Nan asked.
“Honestly?” she said. “I’ve never touched the oven. I don’t even know how to turn it on. Any cooking I do is on the stovetop.”
“Oh, that should be easy,” she said. “They’re all pretty much the same.” And Nan turned the oven dial, and a red light immediately came on.
“But doesn’t red mean stop?” Doreen asked.
“No, in the case of an oven, it usually means it’s turned on.” She added, “Now this one is newer than the old one I had. It might even tell us when it’s up to temperature. Or this other light might go off, when it’s up to temperature. Let’s set it for 375,” she said, and she showed her. “Now this is the only dial you need to turn on. Once you do that, it’s all set,” she said, “but let’s check where the racks are.”
She pulled out the racks and rearranged them. “Ideally you want to bake in the middle of the oven,” she said. “If you’re broiling, you want to be close to the top, but, if you’re baking something like a cake, the middle of the oven is best.” And, with that, they made tea, as they waited for the oven to warm up.
“Are we hurting the batter by waiting?” Doreen asked, her gaze on both filled pans.
“Well, it would have been more ideal if it had gone in immediately,” she said. “But it wasn’t ready, so no sense worrying about it. Only so many things you can control. Don’t bother worrying about something in the past. Learn the lesson and move on.”
She smiled at Nan. “That’s how you’ve survived all these years, isn’t it? By prioritizing the things that you worry about.”
“It’s called, don’t sweat the small stuff,” Nan said. “I think somebody even wrote a book like that.” She shrugged. “Why people would write a book about something so basic, I don’t know. But I think it was a best seller.”
Doreen laughed. “Because a lot of people, like me, need to be reminded that we only have access to a certain number of molecules or brain cells or energy in a day, and we need to prioritize what we’ll do with them.”
“Maybe,” Nan said. “But I never did understand why folks worry about things they can’t change.”
“Meaning, now that we already missed that opportunity to preheat the oven earlier, why worry, just carry on?”
“Exactly,” Nan said. “Because we can’t go back and change it anyway, so forget about it, and work with what we’ve got.” And then she said, “But you also promised me a cup of tea.”
Doreen laughed. “I did, indeed. So let’s get that water back on again.”
“That reminds me. My grandmother said we should never reheat tea water.”
Doreen stopped and looked at her. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember the logic behind it now. It’s just something we’ve always done.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it?” she said. “We certainly have it in abundance here.” She dumped out the previously boiled teakettle full of water, only to refill it
