At twenty-seven, YouTube sensation Ben Leonards is married to his work. If he's not whipping up lasagna with a side of science experiments, he's running statistical analysis of bitcoin during explosive behavior periods.
When a friend asks him to org...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
My kitchen is in more disarray than it's ever been. I pick up the copy of the page from Amelie's version of the notebook, shake the flour off it and read it again. The stains that looked brown or yellow on the pages look like gray or black smudges on the photocopies of Amelie's version of the notebook.
Nonna and Amelie don't have the same handwriting. Amelie writes in round squatty letters that touch each other—it's legible, unlike her grandmother's, but the way they notate is the same: phrases and unfinished thoughts in random places require translation. Not because they are in a different language, although a lot of them are in Italian or in French, but because it could be the middle of a sentence. The one I'm looking at says 'and no air beat' next to the 'six eggs' in the ricotta pound cake recipe.
These will take time to decipher, but I did that with the original recipes, and I have Amelie to help me with hers. She didn't object to me making copies for myself, but prefers to keep her version of the notebook open on the counter—too close to the stove with the simmering ragu. I don't see the need to have both the photocopy and the original out, but Amelie disagrees.
Disagreements are part of this Saturday afternoon. My menu for the weekly lunch with my parents and Tall did not include a dessert. Desserts usually mean baking, and baking is not a large part of my repertoire: it has a lot less room for experimentation; the chemistry of it is less forgiving, and I can't substitute things on a whim. Maybe master bakers can swing it, but I'm not one. I do agree we have made too much ricotta, but that was at Amelie's insistence.
"If we are making it, we might as well make a batch that will last the whole week," she said. "Making just enough for one dish is outrageous. It's ricotta, there's never enough of it." It's the second dish of her grandmother's we cooked together and I didn't enjoy the process. With Mo, we divided and conquered. With Am, we are doing the same thing and the mess she made of my kitchen is not. . .compatible with cooking, not my way of cooking.
"Can you please put the flour away?" I point to the open container on the edge of the counter.
"Oh, I'll need that."
"Haven't we measured all the flour we need already?"
"That was for bechamel. I need some pound cake. Will use up some of my ricotta that offends you so."
"I'm not offended. It took up an eighth of my fridge. I'l have to change this week's menu to figure out how to use it. Even if you take half of it, it'll still a lot of ricotta."
"Take some to your parents, Tall would eat some, wouldn't he? And I can drop some at Angie's. It's like cookies: there can never be too many cookies. Everyone will say yes if you offer to drop off extra cookies for them." She takes bowl out of my cabinet and measures one-third cup flower into it, then moves the open container to the other side of the counter. I look around for the lid, close it and put it away into the cabinet. "It uses two pounds of ricotta—one of the quickest ways I know to use it up." She takes the container of eggs out of the fridge and counts out six. Six. Leaving me with two eggs. The pasta I was planning to make next week will need more than two eggs. I take out my phone and add to my shopping list.
