The Sweetness of Salt(25)

Sophie’s ability to create things in the kitchen was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was a skill that came naturally, an innate knowledge that only she possessed, with an end result that was nothing short of magnificent. In the span of half a day, the blue kitchen counter would be covered with whole vanilla cakes, the edges moist and slightly crumbling, bowls of fudge frosting accented with a splash of espresso, zucchini bread studded with pineapple and carrots and walnuts, even peanut brittle made with a combination of brown sugar and toffee. She created everything from scratch; each recipe an original, tried again and again until the proportions were perfect.

And she worked hard. There was no doubt about that. Her shoulders would droop as the day went on, her cheeks would flush pink. But the exertion didn’t seem to bother her. On the contrary, it seemed to inspire her even more. She would finish with some sort of cream puff or biscotti and then, staring at it for a minute, say something like: “I wonder would what happen if…” The next moment, she would start all over again, throwing ingredients into a bowl, and whipping something else into a frenzy. Everything she made went to Eddie and his family, though. We never got a chance to try any of it.

I struck gold only once, when Sophie looked up in the middle of making her dark-chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, oatmeal, and toffee, and grinned at me. I ducked behind the wall, but I was too late. “I know you’re there,” she said. “You want to help?”

“Me?” I peeked out around the step.

She laughed. “Yeah, dork. You.”

I scrambled from my seat and ran into the kitchen. Sophie made me turn around as she tied an apron around my waist and scooped my hair up into a ponytail, and I was glad I wasn’t facing her, because my mouth was plastered with an idiotic smile. I washed my hands and rolled up my sleeves, ready to be let in on Sophie’s magical world of baking.

But there was not as much magic as I imagined. Not nearly as much. I’d conjured up visuals of Sophie adding secret ingredients here and there—maybe some sort of exotic extract that brought out the taste of the dough. Instead, I tried to hide my disappointment as she placed boring old butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and baking soda on the countertop, and then pulled out the mixer.

“That’s it?” I asked. “Isn’t there anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s all that goes into your cookies?”

Sophie shrugged. “Well, we have to add the chocolate and walnuts and toffee at the end, but yeah, all this stuff makes up the base of the dough.” She reached for a tiny white dish on top of the stove. “Oops, and salt. I almost forgot salt.”

“Salt?” I wrinkled my nose, and then widened my eyes. “Is that your secret ingredient?”

Sophie laughed. “Salt isn’t a secret ingredient, doofus. Besides, you just add a pinch. Salt brings out all the flavors.” She paused. “It’s weird, isn’t it? How something so opposite of sweet can make things taste even better?”

“How does it do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sophie answered. “It just kind of brings everything together in its own strange little way.”

The cookies came out of the oven twenty minutes later. Sophie poured each of us a tall glass of milk, placed two cookies apiece on Mom’s rose and ivy teacup saucers, and drew up a chair at the kitchen counter. I stood on the chair while Sophie rested her elbows on the counter, and we dug in. The cookies were warm and soft, a perfect contrast to the heavy, weighted centers, and the edges were crisped only slightly.

“You know, getting to eat what you make is the second-best thing about baking,” Sophie said, sinking her teeth into another cookie.

“What’s the first thing?” I asked.

“Being in the kitchen with a head full of ideas.” There was a tiny smear of chocolate on her chin. “Right before you start—when anything is possible. That’s the best thing.”





chapter


18


After breakfast, Sophie showed me around the house. She took me upstairs first, leading me into two small bedrooms. Except for a single bed and dresser in one of them, both rooms were completely bare. Despite their sparseness, they didn’t look half as bad as I expected them to. Their pale walls, freshly refinished floors, and undressed windows, however, indicated that some work had already been done to them. The scent of clean wood filled the air, and light streamed in from the wide windows on both sides.

“Where is all of Goober’s stuff?” I asked.

Sophie waved her hand. “Her things are still in the garage until I finish all of this. I don’t want them to get dirty. And technically she doesn’t even need her bed. She still sleeps with me.”

She led me back downstairs, into a large, very wide room in the front of the house. The floors were rough and unfinished, and while two of the walls were bare and smooth, the other two were pocked with cracked plaster. Unlike the woodsy scent upstairs, this room was permeated with a strange oily smell.

Sophie walked into the middle of the room. She spread her arms out wide and turned around slowly. “This room is going to be the first thing people see when they come in. This is going to be the whole front of the store.” She pointed to an empty space on the right. “I want to have a case of breads over there—whole wheat, rye—and English muffins, and cranberry-nut, blueberry-lemon, and white chocolate raspberry muffins over there. I want a table in the middle filled with nothing but cookies—the dark-chocolate-walnut-toffee ones, coconut macaroons, peanut butter drops with the little Hershey’s Kisses in the middle, and sugar cookies. And then on the left, I’m thinking pies: apple, peach, and cherry daily, and maybe chocolate cream espresso for special occasions. Plus, I want to have a wall for all different kinds of specials. Maybe a certain bread—like Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, fruitcake for Christmas, or challah bread for Passover—whatever.” She looked at me, her face shiny with perspiration. “What do you think?”