Back in the day, we didn’t eat dessert on a regular basis and when we did, it was usually something store bought like Little Debbie snacks, or for a special treat we’d go to Dairy Queen and get a dip cone or a Blizzard. Most of the time if we wanted something sweet, my brother and I would just walk to the corner store and buy a piece of gum or Laffy Taffy for a nickel. That was also when gasoline was 99¢ a gallon! I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.
Every so often my aunt Melinda would make a cake, usually from a mix. She is five years older than me, and she’s always felt more like an older sister than an aunt. I would sit in my grandma’s tiny kitchen at the round, wooden table for four and watch her bake. We used the kitchen table as our work surface because counter space was limited and my grandma was often in the kitchen whipping up hearty meals to feed all of us. To this day, she still rolls out homemade flour tortillas at that table. A fresh homemade tortilla hot off the comal with a pat of butter is one of the best snacks you’ll ever have. I always wanted to help my aunt because I thought that measuring out ingredients, cracking eggs, and stirring thick sweet batter looked like so much fun. But when I did profess my desire for helping, I got stuck doing the chore nobody wants to do—greasing the pans. We couldn’t afford to buy nonstick baking spray, so we used what we had on hand, which was shortening and flour. I hated sticking my fingers in that white stuff and smearing it into the pans. It took forever to wash off my hands, and then the flour dust got all over me and the kitchen, but I knew if I wanted to help, this is what I had to do. And I did.
