Category: Baking

The Collective

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She came straight from weeding her small plot of land in the community garden.

The fiery redhead marched to the podium and gaveled the meeting to order. “The first item, the only important one, is the proposal to buy a mill to grind the wheat.”

A large man barked. “No one else grows wheat.”

The crowd quacked their approval.

Her feathers ruffled, the redhead said, “You eat the bread I bake. Let’s turn the garden into a wheat field and mill our own flour.”

A catlike woman spoke. “Hannah, dear, we thought you liked baking. We don’t.”

Roads Traveled

Gretel did these interviews reluctantly. She hadn’t been a saint, far from it. She did what she had to after her stepmother kicked her and Hansel out. “We were homeless.” The reporter looked into Gretel’s eyes and seemed to reach into her soul. It was an uncomfortable moment. The reporter’s face softened. “But you… Somehow…”

“There was an older woman. When she died we made a go of the bakery. We built a home to shelter runaways.”

The woman wiped away a tear. “She was my sister. The black sheep in an old Wiccan family. She wasn’t all that kind.”

A Mother’s Quandary

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My only daughter, a kind one her. Didn’t she bake a cake, ripe with almond scent, to bring her grandmother? To visit my mother is arduous, more than one day’s journey. Should I caution her? Could my daughter understand if I warned her about the treacherous nature of the beast we women become by the light of the moon? And as fate would have it, the moon is full tonight. 

I must trust my precious girl. I tell her, “Stay on the path, avoid strangers, clean yourself in the river along the way if you must. My love to Grandma.”

The Magi and the Cake

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Three kings emerged from a swirling storm of sand into 2023. Sand transformed to rain and wind stilled. They parked their camels in front of a cottage to munch sweet grass. 

When a woman opened the door, the smell of Gallete du Rois met them. “You came in costume.” It was like they were old friends.

They crossed the threshold and mingled. A babble of languages greeted them: a glass of wine, a piece of cake, a celebration of their gift to a child king, a toast to peace on earth. The magic of it was that all were welcome.

Epona

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I’ve been goddessing since the Iron Age. Born in water, manifested on land as horse/seductress, I lured Roman soldiers to their deaths. There’s a coin to prove it.

But Rome won. They couldn’t bury me; too many loyal followers. A demotion to domestic goddess, that’s all they managed. A warrior at heart, I spent centuries in the kitchen baking and plotting, biding my time.

We struck. Me, Ceres, and Demeter took back fertility and reproduction. It’s what they fear about women. The secrets we know about life and death. The patriarchy can try, but they can’t take away our power.

Foolish Woman Not So Dumb

Tree house at Brunel Manor by David Smith is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

Baba Yaga, foolish old woman, rattler of chicken bones magicked from soup. Her elder son nurses historic delusions. In the younger one, hope persists. Hers is tough love at best. Battles rage. Forgotten, the soup gets cold.

Baba Yaga makes a cake with pears, no mushrooms. She absorbs the stove into herself, casting a spell on the forest. Her heart, a net to catch the half-cracked madness. The cake, an irresistible odor summoning the children to the table in Baba Yaga’s stilt perched house. As they eat, she turns the house upside down, shaking up what had seemed inevitable.

Can’t Catch Me

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It was the season for gingerbread. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and other delicious smells wafted through the village from the bakery at the edge of the forest. It was the year the old woman who had baked him and the old man he called father had passed.

The Gingerbread Boy kept the business going, paddling cookies in and out of the ovens. On the day he learned that the estate went to the man’s brother, who did not accept him as a nephew, the orphan decided to make headlines. He ran for his life, beating every Olympic record and securing his future.

Werewolf

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“Hey, Granny,” Red Riding Hood pushed open the rough-hewn door. “Sorry, I’m late.”

She stopped in mid-explanation when she saw something half-resembling her grandmother standing in the kitchen. It clawed to open it’s blouse.

“Oh my,” said the old were-lady, whose cracking voice resembled a teenager.

Without thinking, Red said, “What hairy arms…”

“Not that again,” it said, “The last time, I barely escaped with the hair on my chinny… oh, never mind.”

Red stood with her mouth wide open, cradling a basket of jam and scones.

“Darling, put all that in the icebox. And help me with these buttons.”

The Golden Cake

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“Ma, we’ve got a ground-floor opportunity with these magic seeds.” But, it wasn’t the partnership that had convinced Jack to trade Milky-White. It was the sweet milk the green-skinned magician coaxed from her dry udders.

“Dear fool,” his mother said, and took to her bed.

Still, they prospered. Stalks grew into the clouds where the giant harvested and ground the wheat. His wife baked cakes using milk, flour and goose eggs. Jack sold the dainties, famous for a penny-weight of gold in each, to bakeries across the kingdom.

On Sundays, an incantation transported him to Milky-White, who never aged.

Sweet Revenge

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“Can I help you?” Hansel noted the dated, rather dusty costume the elderly woman wore. Like Halloween instead of almost Christmas. “Cookies for the grandchildren? Or cakes?”

Her voice cracked like old parchment paper. “The gingerbread houses interest me.” Holding up a fairy tale collection, she pointed a spindly finger at the cover. “That one is mine.”

“The book?”

“No, I mean I designed the house.”

“No kidding.” Her hair infused with cinnamon, Gretel appeared, setting a hot tray down. “You’re an illustrator?”

“A baker.”

“Oh, you’re here to apply for the job? It’s temporary.”

“That’s perfect,” the witch said.