Brownies, Oyster Crackers, and One Mean Old Dead Lady
One Thanksgiving about 20 years ago, I made brownies. “They taste like….” my younger brother said, chewing around a piece carefully as he furrowed his brow in concentration, hoping to find just the right word, “…they taste like paint .” I snapped my fingers and nodded because he’d done it. He’d found the right word. Even though I had never actually tasted paint, not even one tiny lick of the wall when I was a little girl, they did. Those brownies tasted like paint. There were a lot of excuses made for me that day from well-meaning members of my extended family: the oil was probably bad; the butter might’ve been salted; maybe the chicken that had laid the particular egg that I’d used in the recipe had been feeling a little “off” that day… “Or maybe she just sucks at baking,” my older sister suggested as she floated through the kitchen to refill people’s drinks. Well, of course she would say that. She was the one hosting Thanksgiving that year...