(no subject)
Character sketch exercise: Toby Carnahan
~~
Preparation always began with the spin of two dials: volume on the radio (tuned permanently to the country oldies station), and the oven temperature knob set to preheat 350. Today, the numbers climbed quickly, and the DJ seemed especially fixated on murder ballads. All that suited Toby just fine.
He lowered the blinds and checked the deadbolt before he donned the designated apron. It had been his mother’s, and while the rickrack trim and gingham-heart patch-pockets betrayed this, it adjusted strangely well to fit her son’s burly frame. Momma had been a tiny woman; by the time she taught him the recipe, nine-year-old Toby was already taller. Lucy wasn’t even born yet, he now realized.
He retrieved the baking chocolate from the pantry. Four squares he set aside whole; five more he broke apart and arranged on the cutting board. He happened to draw the chef’s knife from its block while a twangy baritone narrated a stabbing on the radio. He chuckled.
Chopping the baking chocolate released the aroma, and soon it permeated the kitchenette. He felt the give of the squares under the knife, the same way a candy bar yields to front teeth. He recalled that moment, twenty-odd years ago in a kitchen half a continent away, when he learned what every child must learn for himself: that baking chocolate was not as palatable as it looked, felt, and smelled. Cruel seductress, he thought, scooping the mutilated pieces into a bowl. Later, they would join confectioner’s sugar and whipping cream to become frosting.
He drew out the foil to line the pan in a smooth, even sheet. He greased this lining and watched his reflection go blurry. Momma’s face was no longer so clear in memory; he glanced at her picture on the fridge as he put the surviving chocolate squares in the microwave with the butter. No lyric on the radio mirrored their fate; rather, a commercial for the cancer-specialty hospital near campus. (Perhaps this was parallel after all: radiation.)
A reminder.
He fetched the dried cilantro, an herb he found useless in its own right, from the spice rack. Inside the jar, centered in the flakes and isolated in a tiny plastic bag, was the ingredient Momma had only added to the recipe later on, when she took sick. Toby was a teenager by then, and a football teammate had a connection. Treatment only bought her those last years; the brownies gave back some comfort, and for a while, her appetite.
The microwave timer and preheat signal went off in tandem. He began to move more deliberately, dumping the chocolate butter into the mixing bowl and adding sugar; Madagascar bourbon vanilla; cracking eggs; sifting flour. The beaters made sense of it all with their dovetailing spirals, made the reassuring, thick consistency he had come to identify by sight -- dense enough to mask the leaves.
He drizzled it, viscous and silky, into the pan. The first time he went it alone in Momma’s kitchen, he was 17. She was bedridden by then, and he read the crumbling recipe card for the first time. When that batch finished baking, he came upon the instruction, “Poke center with toothpick to test; pull out and check for fudgy crumbs.”
His laughter then carried up the stairs, and Momma hoarsely called down, “What’s so funny?”
~~
Preparation always began with the spin of two dials: volume on the radio (tuned permanently to the country oldies station), and the oven temperature knob set to preheat 350. Today, the numbers climbed quickly, and the DJ seemed especially fixated on murder ballads. All that suited Toby just fine.
He lowered the blinds and checked the deadbolt before he donned the designated apron. It had been his mother’s, and while the rickrack trim and gingham-heart patch-pockets betrayed this, it adjusted strangely well to fit her son’s burly frame. Momma had been a tiny woman; by the time she taught him the recipe, nine-year-old Toby was already taller. Lucy wasn’t even born yet, he now realized.
He retrieved the baking chocolate from the pantry. Four squares he set aside whole; five more he broke apart and arranged on the cutting board. He happened to draw the chef’s knife from its block while a twangy baritone narrated a stabbing on the radio. He chuckled.
Chopping the baking chocolate released the aroma, and soon it permeated the kitchenette. He felt the give of the squares under the knife, the same way a candy bar yields to front teeth. He recalled that moment, twenty-odd years ago in a kitchen half a continent away, when he learned what every child must learn for himself: that baking chocolate was not as palatable as it looked, felt, and smelled. Cruel seductress, he thought, scooping the mutilated pieces into a bowl. Later, they would join confectioner’s sugar and whipping cream to become frosting.
He drew out the foil to line the pan in a smooth, even sheet. He greased this lining and watched his reflection go blurry. Momma’s face was no longer so clear in memory; he glanced at her picture on the fridge as he put the surviving chocolate squares in the microwave with the butter. No lyric on the radio mirrored their fate; rather, a commercial for the cancer-specialty hospital near campus. (Perhaps this was parallel after all: radiation.)
A reminder.
He fetched the dried cilantro, an herb he found useless in its own right, from the spice rack. Inside the jar, centered in the flakes and isolated in a tiny plastic bag, was the ingredient Momma had only added to the recipe later on, when she took sick. Toby was a teenager by then, and a football teammate had a connection. Treatment only bought her those last years; the brownies gave back some comfort, and for a while, her appetite.
The microwave timer and preheat signal went off in tandem. He began to move more deliberately, dumping the chocolate butter into the mixing bowl and adding sugar; Madagascar bourbon vanilla; cracking eggs; sifting flour. The beaters made sense of it all with their dovetailing spirals, made the reassuring, thick consistency he had come to identify by sight -- dense enough to mask the leaves.
He drizzled it, viscous and silky, into the pan. The first time he went it alone in Momma’s kitchen, he was 17. She was bedridden by then, and he read the crumbling recipe card for the first time. When that batch finished baking, he came upon the instruction, “Poke center with toothpick to test; pull out and check for fudgy crumbs.”
His laughter then carried up the stairs, and Momma hoarsely called down, “What’s so funny?”