$150,000 Rugelach
Page 1
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
New York, NY
Text copyright © 2021 by Allison Marks and Wayne Marks
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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First Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-4998-1231-2
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To Rita Marks
thank you for all the sweet memories
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 1
Jillian Mermelstein stared at the long wooden spoon lying next to the empty mixing bowl. It had been months since she had thought about this scarred brown utensil, usually hidden in the kitchen junk drawer underneath a pizza take-out menu. She ran her index finger over its curved top, where a small triangle of wood was missing like a chipped tooth.
She closed her eyes and gripped the handle hard, hoping it would magically make her feel joyful and inspired, like it once did. Instead, the spoon felt cold and dead—a stick of tiger maple with a chunk missing, a reminder that her life would always be slightly broken, forever incomplete.
Jillian placed the old spoon back in the drawer. She wouldn’t need it today.
Clutching a flathead screwdriver and a bundle of wires, Grandma Rita strolled into the room as Jillian closed the drawer. “I’ve been working on that busted garage door opener all morning,” she said, unbuckling her tool belt and placing it on a chair. “Seems to be a faulty sensor. Oooh, is that a mixing bowl I see? Is somebody thinking about doing some baking?”
To anyone who knew her, Grandma Rita was the most loving person on the planet. Her bright smile and kind eyes could light a million candles. Sometimes she wore pink highlights in her graying hair “just because.” She was the best kind of crazy.
Grandma Rita picked a flier off the refrigerator. “Say, you still have to take something to your sixth-grade winter party, right? It says here, bring cookies, brownies, or other baked goods. What’ll it be?”
Suddenly the only thing Jillian wanted was to run to her room and escape within the pages of the thickest book she could find. Reading was how she spent most of her evenings and all of her weekends. It was the perfect way to avoid conversations like this one.
No reason to change my routine tonight, especially for a stupid class party.
“Come on, Jilly. It’ll be fun,” Grandma Rita said, doing her best to sound cheerful for her granddaughter’s sake. “Let’s fill the house with the smell of fresh almond cookies.”
Jillian crossed her arms. Her jet-black ponytail swayed as she shook her head. She gazed down at her tennis shoes, unwilling to look her grandmother in the eye. Her skin was unusually pale, not like last year when her summer tan lasted all through the winter. She just didn’t feel much like going outside anymore, not even to hike on wooded trails or pick wild blackberries.
“No. I don’t want to.”
Grandma Rita persisted. “How about we make chocolate rugelach instead? I bet your friends at school would love that.”
Jillian frowned. Since moving with her father to Ardmore, Ohio, from Seattle in September, she hadn’t made any friends at Sieberling School. She didn’t want any. And she certainly didn’t want to spend an afternoon making chocolate rugelach, or almond cookies, or anything for anyone. Watching her classmates wolf down their lunches, never pausing to actually taste the food, made her doubt that they would appreciate her rugelach—a traditional Jewish pastry filled with a spiral of chocolate tucked between layers of flaky dough.
“I can’t. Too much homework.”
“Then I’ll just have to make the rugelach myself.” Grandma Rita went to the cupboard and began gathering ingredients, none of which had any business being in a rugelach recipe.
Argh! Soy sauce? Not soy sauce, Grandma!
Jillian laughed to herself. As a part-time math professor, Grandma Rita had an amazing way of simplifying the story problems in Jillian’s homework. She could replace a leaky faucet, install an electrical socket, change the oil in her roadster, and run the annual Ardmore Thanksgiving Day 10K in under an hour and five minutes.
But no matter how much Grandma Rita tried, baking was not part of her skill set. Her pound cake weighed a ton. Her sugar cookies were too salty and her salted caramel cupcakes were too sweet. Once, smoke from a blueberry pie left in the oven too long brought a prompt visit from the Ardmore Fire Department. Jillian feared that her grandmother’s solo attempt at rugelach might have even worse results.
“Yes, siree, gonna make the world’s best chocolate rugelach for Jilly’s class,” Grandma Rita said, whistling as she picked up a cheese grater and glanced at Jillian out of the corner of her eye. “Sorry you don’t want to help, but, hey, I’ll do just fine … all … by … myself.”
Jillian thought about the wooden spoon, which used to feel so warm. So comforting. It had belonged to her mother—Grandma Rita’s daughter, Joan. Mom had taught Jillian how to bake in the kitchen of Joan of Hearts, the pastry shop she had owned in Seattle. Her mother had shown her the secrets of making rugelach: letting the butter soften, not overmixing the ingredients, properly chilling the dough, turning each bite-size morsel golden brown, and knowing the precise instant to pull it from the oven.
Now her mother was gone.
Jillian picked up the spoon and recalled her mother’s words at the end of her first baking lesson.
Don’t forget to add the most important ingredient of all. Love. Trust me, without it, your rugelach won’t taste nearly as sweet. Nothing will.
“Fine, Grandma, I’ll help you,” Jillian sighed.
“Wonderful! I’ll put on Vivaldi. Your mother always listened to classical music when she baked.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“So, my dearest pâtissier, where do we begin?”
“First, put away the cheese grater and soy sauce. We won’t need them.”
“Of course, I knew that,” Grandma Rita said, winking.
Chapter 2
Across town, Jack Fineman spun around the kitchen to the sound of his favorite rock band, Zombie Brunch. Holding a bottle of vanilla extract in one hand and a whisk in the other, he thrashed his head in sync to the screaming guitars and industrial noises. He tossed his mad-scientist tangle of hair from side to side and shouted out the song�
��s first verse:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Maniacs, it’s time to munch!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Welcome to the Zombie Bruuuuunch!
The granite countertop was all but hidden under ingredients and gadgets Jack needed to create “my next masterpiece,” as he called it. Tomorrow at the sixth-grade class party, he knew everyone would be anticipating his latest delectable dessert. He didn’t want to disappoint his fans.
“So what are you making this year?” his best friend, Chad, had asked at lunch. “It’s going to be hard to top those little pies with the weird green fruit on top you made last year.”
“Oh, you mean my kiwi-crowned tartlets with strawberry filling and rosemary-tinged pretzel crust,” Jack had said. “I have something even better planned, but you’ll have to wait. World-famous chefs never reveal their secrets.”
“World famous? Get real.”
“Gotta dream big. Gotta dream big.”
For Chad and the rest of the class at Sieberling School, the day of the holiday party was no big deal: sugary treats, carbonated punch, a crossword puzzle, crafts, and a song or two.
But to Jack, the holiday party meant more. It was his Super Bowl, his World Cup, and his victory lap at the Daytona Speedway rolled into one.
That’s because Jack Fineman had one goal—to be the greatest pastry chef who ever lived. Not second best or only good enough to win praise from Chad or Amy Eppington, the girl he’d had a crush on since first grade. He wanted to be the best. Nothing else would do. And in Jack’s mind, nothing else mattered.
According to Jack’s plan, foodies from Ohio to France would one day savor his éclairs and cream puffs. His face would appear on his own brand of spices and cookware—stainless steel spatulas, nesting bowls, Dutch ovens, and more. Lines of customers stretching blocks would snake outside his gourmet pastry shops. He would be recognized as the most famous person ever to come from Ardmore.
But right now the title of Ardmore’s most famous culinary resident belonged to Jack’s idol, Phineas Farnsworth III, owner and CEO of the world-renowned Farnsworth Baking Supply Company. The Farnsworth baking dynasty began in the 1930s as nothing more than a humble one-room store run by Phineas Farnsworth III’s grandfather. Now the factory in the center of the city took up three entire blocks. Practically half the town worked for the business, churning out mountains of flour, rivers of lemon extract, blizzards of powdered sugar, and kitchen gadgets of every kind. Because of the Farnsworth family, Ardmore was known everywhere as “Bakerstown, USA.” For the last seventy-four years, the company had sponsored the Bakerstown Bonanza, a contest that drew amateur pastry chefs from across the country to Ardmore. In the world of cupcakes and cookies, Jack knew there was no one bigger than Phineas Farnsworth III.
Jack looked down at a package of brown sugar featuring a cartoonish drawing of Farnsworth in a white chef’s hat, winking and giving a thumbs-up.
Someday that’ll be me, Jack thought, as he cracked his knuckles and scanned his original recipe for butterscotch basil brownies.
“Let the Jack Attack begin!” he roared.
Jack put on his own chef’s hat and slipped on a blue apron over his ripped T-shirt and shredded jeans. Like a medieval sorcerer brewing a bubbling potion, he tossed ingredients into the mixing bowl: butter, brown sugar, salt, eggs, flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, butterscotch chips, and chopped basil leaves. Jack barely looked at the recipe. His fingers knew how much to add and when to hold back. Flour dusted his hair. Batter splattered his apron.
With the mixer whirring, Jack belted out lyrics to the second cut on Zombie Brunch’s only album, Enjoy the Feast. Released in 1977, it had been panned by critics as “the worst music ever put on vinyl.” Jack loved it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
The moon is down, now comes the sun!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Put down your fork! The meal is done!
“Jack, please!” Mr. Fineman said, poking his head into the kitchen. “I’m reviewing some new tax laws. I need to concentrate. Can you sing inside your head or something?”
Mrs. Fineman followed. “I just got off the phone with a patient. She asked me if everything was okay at our house because it sounded like someone was in pain.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “I’ll dial it down.”
“Good. Now finish up and do your homework,” Mr. Fineman said before going back to his stack of papers.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief. He had expected another long talk about spending too many hours with his head in a cookbook and not enough time studying the Mesopotamians or the structure of a water molecule. He recalled his last report card (one B, three C’s, and a D in social studies). This had earned him an extended lecture about the importance of schoolwork and a three-week ban from the kitchen. At least this time his father’s message was short and to the point.
But it wasn’t just his grades. From early on, Jack sensed something annoyed his parents about his baking. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.
Refocusing on his masterpiece, Jack poured the batter into the greased pan and slid it into the oven. As he was cleaning up, he imagined himself as a contestant in the Bakerstown Bonanza. Cell phones held up by the crowd captured his every move for posterity. He envisioned Farnsworth watching open-mouthed, unable to grasp how someone so young could be so talented in the kitchen.
The ding of the oven timer brought Jack back to reality. He iced the brownies with cinnamon cream and breathed in deeply. By the aroma alone, Jack knew they would be the talk of Sieberling School for another year. A creation so spectacular that even the great chefs of Europe would turn in their aprons after a single taste. He smiled, certain that by tomorrow afternoon he would take the next step up the ladder to culinary greatness.
Chapter 3
Jack laid his circular tray of butterscotch basil brownies in the middle of the long table by the blackboard. He had cut them into small pieces to form a Star of David. Wooden dreidels and white chocolate balls wrapped in blue foil decorated the plate. He stepped back, pleased that he had added a touch of his Jewish heritage to the table.
Magnificent! You’ve outdone yourself, Mr. Fineman. Once again, Jack pictured Farnsworth complimenting him while twirling his long braided goatee.
Jack reviewed the rest of the holiday goodies placed beneath paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. He saw store-bought sugar cookies topped with waxy green icing, lumpy chocolate cupcakes with a white gumdrop protruding from the top, jelly donuts oozing raspberry filling, caramel-coated popcorn balls dotted with unexploded kernels, a tin of peppermint candy canes, some dry snickerdoodles, and potato chips with French onion dip. In the center, a clear plastic punch bowl held a fizzing blend of ginger ale and neon lime fruit drink the color of antifreeze.
Jack turned to go back to his desk when he spied something peculiar nestled between a lopsided Styrofoam snowman and a pyramid of red plastic cups. His nose led him past the donuts and cupcakes to a white plate filled with …
Chocolate rugelach? Who made chocolate rugelach?
Jack glanced at Chad, who was staring at the snow outside. He assumed his friend was daydreaming about snowboarding or filming a new video to add to his YouTube channel of skateboarding tricks—many of which involved him accidentally colliding with a road sign.
Nope, it’s definitely not Chad. He thinks a Twinkie and a root beer is a gourmet meal.
Jack bent closer to the plate. He hated to admit it, but the rugelach smelled wonderful.
Not to worry. It probably tastes like wet cardboard filled with cheap chocolate. Guaranteed.
“Okay, class. Take your seats,” said Ms. Riedel, the homeroom teacher. “Before we start the party, we’re going to do a story problem.”
The class groaned.
“Math?” Chad muttered to Jack. “What kind of warped holiday celebration is this? Ho, ho, ho! What wo
uld you like for Christmas, little Timmy? Of course, an algebra equation!”
Chad’s banter usually made Jack crack up … and get in trouble. But not this time. Jack was too busy scanning the room to find the secret rugelach-maker—the person with the chutzpah to challenge the Sieberling School top baker throne, which he had held since wowing his first-grade class with milk chocolate–burgundy cherry cookies.
“I have a special surprise for the student who figures out the problem first,” Ms. Riedel continued.
Her words grabbed Jack’s attention. Ms. Riedel was known for stashing the best rewards in her bottom desk drawer. And this was no exception. She held up a dark chocolate bar flavored with spiced orange peels, one of Jack’s favorite flavor combinations. He believed no one in the class could appreciate the blend of cocoa and citrus like him.
That bar belongs to me.
Ms. Riedel wrote the problem on the board:
At the holiday party in Room 609, the table was filled with 100 treats: 25 candy canes, 20 chocolate cupcakes, 20 brownies, 7 popcorn balls, 1 bag of chips, 1 container of French onion dip, and 1 bowl of punch. The rest are jelly donuts. What percentage of the holiday treats are jelly donuts?
“Now … go! Show your work. And no guessing. Raise your hand when you think you’ve got it.”
The class feverishly scribbled in their notebooks. Jack was usually a whiz at math, especially percentages. But the lingering smell of the rugelach distracted him.
Chad, not much for quizzes, or math, or homework, doodled a blizzard scene in the margins of his paper.
“Don’t look at me for the answer,” Chad said. “I’m busy freestyling down the Matterhorn right now.”
Jack stared at the board. Then his brain clicked. That’s it. Add the numbers and subtract the total from one hundred. Boom, there’s the answer.
Jack’s hand shot up. Ms. Riedel looked past him to the last row, the desk on the very end next to the storage closet.
“Yes, Jillian. So what did you come up with?”
“Twenty-five percent,” Jillian said in a barely audible voice. “One-fourth of the holiday treats are jelly donuts.”