Page Two
I hadn’t practiced making roses yet and since I already had bowls of frosting in varying degrees of consistency all over the kitchen, there was no time like the present. A brief peek at the oven clock reminded me that class was five hours away and I had procrastinated to the limit. Now I could interject that I was so confident in my abilities that it didn’t seem necessary to start early, say … six days ago. No, it was more along the order of a growing aversion to frosting since the previous class.
My first cake, plus a convoy of six cupcakes, had followed me back home. Mike and I ate dessert twice a day to keep it all from spoiling. We recalled the dreaded consequences that wasted food caused those ‘starving children’ we used to hear about from our enraged mothers. Mike lived dangerously by avoiding his share of frosting, but I consumed every forkful of mine. Mother would be proud!
I tinted a small bowl of frosting pastel yellow and filled another pastry bag. Instead of using one of the parchment paper cones I made last week, I used one of the reusable bags my mother purchased when she took this same class 40 years ago. I wanted to save the parchment cones to use in front of the instructor.
I overfilled the bag and discovered it was too difficult to squeeze it firm enough to force the frosting to flow smoothly. The sticky concoction oozed out in the direction of least resistance — the back of my poorly folded pastry bag into the palm of my hand and between my fingers. I opened the bag and scooped half of the frosting back into the bowl. Washing my hands turned out to be a total waste of soap and time, because the pastry bag now had almost as much frosting on the outside as on the inside. I picked it up anyway and then twisted the end tightly to prevent a repeat incident.
I applied pressure with my right hand and a ribbon of pastel yellow finally emerged out the tip and I began to form the center of my first rose. Holding the frosting nail in my left hand, I examined the blob with a critical eye, noting it tended to resemble a hunchback slug more than the emergence of a rose bud. I brushed it off into the bowl and tried again. This time I made a giant amoeba, with all the charm one could expect from a protozoon sagging upon a frosting nail.
My first distasteful looking flowers continued to look like a series of Rorschach Tests. Meanwhile the dull thudding in my right temple began. It was either a chorus line of pachyderms on the roof, or the first signals from my familiar invader: the migraine.
I was determined to conquer this deceptively simple maneuver. Lori moved with quick, confident strokes while she crafted life-like petals. Maybe speed was the key. I positioned the nail under the tip (remembering to aim it at the proper angle) and squeezed while quickly twirling the nail in my fingers. The seam of the 40-year-old pastry bag chose that exact moment to burst, sending a fountain of frosting straight up in the air before arcing into graceful loops of sugary ribbons everywhere.
I surveyed the disaster in front of me and took a deep breath. It was going to take a fire hose to clean up the kitchen now. Envisioning how much potential coverage one little bowl of frosting could yield, I offered a silent prayer that my cat wouldn’t decide to waltz through on one of her notorious curiosity tours.
I tried to salvage what little icing that remained in the pastry bag back into the bowl with my deformed rose buds, removed the tip and coupler, and tossed the antique bag in the garbage. I left traces of yellow fingerprints in the process on those few surfaces the frosting explosion had missed.
When I had the worst of the mess under control, I prepared for my next attack. I opted to use one of the parchment cones I folded during the first class. I filled it halfway, leaving ample space to fold over the paper and twist it closed. Petal upon petal formed layers that vaguely resembled a flower of some sort. It was nothing befitting honorary placement on a cake, mind you, but at least it was progress.
I continued to practice and eventually had one decent looking rose resting atop the nail. I lifted the tiny square of wax paper off the nail and carefully placed it on the countertop. I was actually getting the hang of it now.
Three yellow roses were lined up in a row and the fourth rose I’d just completed was the best so far. I felt the premature thrill of success; a moment later the weighty, sculpted flower slid off my fingers on its little wax paper toboggan and smashed upside down on the linoleum floor. I don’t recall what I uttered aloud just then, but I suspect it’s safe to say it wasn’t anything they taught in home economics.
I looked downward at the pastel yellow globule two inches from the toe of my left shoe. My shoulders would have sagged with defeat if it hadn’t been for the persistent migraine that tugged my tightly knotted shoulder muscles in the direction of my ears. Momentarily dazed by the event, I noticed my cat making her entrance on the edge of my peripheral vision. She came to investigate the source of the commotion that had disturbed her nap.
