Strength In Our Bonds (The Strength in Generations Accompanying Book)

The Way The Cookie Crumbles

Martine sat at the small, round table in the kitchen of his and Leiria's house, reading a book; this one was a wartime novel about a man risking his life to cross the country and reunite with his family. It was a sad one for sure, and he had to be sure to not read it around Leiria so she wouldn't get sad by association. Luckily, she was out with her friends at the moment-

The door clicked. Well, she was out with her friends.

"Martine!" Leiria happily scurried into the kitchen, and instead of immediately going for a hug like she always did, she held up two tote bags. "I brought a surprise!"

"A surprise?" Now, Martine was intrigued.

"Yeah." Leiria nodded eagerly. "Look in the bags!" She sat both down on the table.

"Let's see..." Martine stood, and began to do exactly that. "I see some eggs. Flour. Chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, powdered sugar... seems like stuff to make cookies."

"Cookies!" Leiria clapped. "Yay!"

"Did you just go into the baking aisle and pick up random stuff to bring home to me so you could see what I'd think of putting together?"

The only reason Martine had known to ask this was because Leiria had done it before. More than once.

"No, no, Martine, Raine showed us this really magical supermarket near here- it's really huge! I don't know how I never noticed it before, but in any case I thought it would be a good idea to pick up some stuff for yummies. Can we really make cookies?!"

Martine just chuckled. "Yeah," he replied, ruffling Leiria's dark hair. "We can do it now."

"Eee!" Leiria grinned happily.

~ * ~

"I'm the most excited about the peanut butter chips. You know I'm still new to eating peanut butter, so I'm really looking forward to how it tastes..." Leiria was grinning again. Martine was sure she'd be happily swinging her feet under the stool she was sitting on if she wasn't too tall to do so.

"Well, you're in luck. Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are delicious," replied Martine as he sat the rest of the supplies on the counter. "Here, you can mix the dry ingredients while I mix the wet ones. We'll be following this recipe," he sat his phone on the counter.

"Ooh, Martine, this page is available in Portuguese too!" Leiria said happily.

"Yeah, but you don't need it, do you? You're fluent in English."

"I am, but most of my cooking with my parents was done while using Portuguese. I might not know all the words- plus, it reminds me of baking with my parents!" Leiria finished her sentence with a smile.

"Leiria, you shouldn't be imagining baking with your parents with this- unless you're tryin' to kill your father."

Leiria put both hands over her mouth in realization. "You're right..."

For the next few minutes, as Leiria measured out the flour and sugar, she realized something. "Martine?"

"Yes, darlin?"

"I don't actually know the word for peanut butter in Portuguese."

Martine frowned a bit. "What?"

"I mean, my dad's the Portuguese one, and he's allergic to it, so of course he'd never really bring it up." Leiria was thinking now. "The direct translation would be... um... 'peanut' is... oh! Mantega de amendoim, but that seems awfully literal, especially since peanut butter isn't actually butter..."