November 24, 2020

offering

On TV, the amateur bakers wrestle with the strange recipe of the second act—
a list of ingredients, absent of measurements, for something last served two or three
centuries ago. I see them, standing at their kitchen islands, puzzling over the printout,
their minds on a clock running swiftly down. There is no time to hesitate, to second-guess
the workings of their instinct, and so they lean into the din of all that is unfamiliar, aim
their attention at the basest matters of scoop and spoon and spatula, and soon the counter
is a riotous clash of stainless steel, their aprons a Rorschach mandala, and the room
frenzies with the collective effort to get it right, or close. No one—no one—is ready at the
final alarm, but they carry their offering to the long table as if it belonged there, as if it was
of equal necessity, of equal sweetness.