The book automatically opens to page 261. Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts, 1974, purchased brand new, way back then. It went on a journey from my parents' kitchen in San Francisco to New Orleans, where it helped me make desserts for 300 people every week at a church across the street from where we lived on St. Charles near (believe it or not) Desire Street. It was 1983 and I didn't quite know that I was magically pregnant with my daughter. Now, 26 years later we pull this book out for baking with almost 50 inner city teens who have nothing better to do in the Fillmore district. We are working up to selling them at the Farmer's Market this Saturday. They are actually spongecakes, not the true, brown butter madeleines made famous by Proust, but they are easy, you get to make that very fun fluffy egg spongy batter, and people still like them. We'll let the students choose which madeleine recipe will be the one we use.
It is amazing how life carries with it a chorus, repeating, echoing, reassuring in its familiarity. It can be that parachute pack as I jump out into a new adventure everyday.
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