Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
▢ 1½ cups all-purpose flour
▢ ¼ cup unsweetened childhood memories, thoroughly sifted
▢ ⅓ cup vegetable oil (an oldest daughter)
▢ 1 cup water (her mother)
▢ 1 teaspoon white vinegar (her father)
▢ 1 cup sugar or artificial sweetener (see also: the way the parents act differently in public)
▢ ½ teaspoon salt (tears are an acceptable substitution. Can be the daughter’s or the mother’s. The father doesn’t cry.)
▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda
▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
In a large bowl, whisk dry ingredients until combined. Add vinegar, oil, and water. Watch the vinegar froth and foam. Watch the oil and water never mix. Whisk it all together anyway. Pour into a prepared pan. Bake at 350°F for years until burned.
Note: To use as a birthday cake, prepare between screaming matches. Frost generously. Finish
with waxy candles. Make a wish.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
Note: You will not be allowed inside the kitchen, unless it is an emergency.
Note: You are twelve and everything feels like an emergency.
Instructions
Your mother is sleeping off a night shift and your father is never home. Your little sister
says that she is hungry. Pull a box of Kraft dinner from the pantry. Fumble with the
electric stovetop. Triple check the package directions. Cook. Present the bowl of noodles
in their clumpy, neon sauce to your sister. Do not cry when she refuses to eat this, your
first creation.
Note: Later that summer, you will catch a frozen corn dog on fire in the microwave. Do not cry
when you are banned from the kitchen altogether.
Fire Safety Tips
- There is a flame in your chest that you cannot contain. There is no room in this house for someone who burns; the house is already on fire.
- Establish a fire escape plan.
Christmas Cookies
After the divorce, your mom’s kitchen will begin to open its doors. She will experiment —
lavish cakes, homemade pasta. She will invite your younger sister to make Christmas cookies, your younger brother to help with dinner. When you offer to help, do not cry when everyone laughs about corn dogs and macaroni.
Pan Fried Chicken Breast
Come home from college to your sister’s secret cookie recipes and your brother setting up an Iron Chef cookoff with your mom. Spend the weekend screaming at everyone. Return to your dorm on Sunday night and ask your roommate to teach you to cook a chicken breast.
Kitchen Safety Tips
Sign up for a class on knife skills. Buy an Instant Pot and a fire extinguisher. Find a pizza dough recipe and a therapist. Keep offering to help in your mom’s kitchen. Do not cry when she says no. Do not cry when she says yes.
A Timeline for Pandemic Meal Prep
When the grocery shelves are stripped bare, cry when your mother arrives at your doorstep with a single bag of fresh produce. Wash the potatoes, carefully slice the three bell peppers. Set the two green bananas on the counter to ripen.
Weeks later, she leaves a bubbly sourdough mother on your porch. Spend the spring teaching yourself to bake. Text her photos of your boules and buns, make a loaf each Sunday for your kids’ sandwiches. Give her your favorite recipe for focaccia. Take turns killing and refreshing each other’s starters.
Test positive. Cry when she leaves a heavy pan of homemade macaroni and cheese on your front porch.
At Christmas, she will invite you and your kids to make cookies. When you step into her kitchen, she will hand you a cup of tea and an apron. Ask for advice. Ask for another starter.
AMANDA ROTH (she/her) is a mother, writer, and folklorist living in Central Texas. Her work can be found in Portland Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Literary Mama, Jet Fuel Review, Five Minutes, and elsewhere. Website: msha.ke/amandarothpoetry IG: @amandarothpoetry
