Still, her father remained undefeated. When the game was close, the letter she needed hid deep within the bag. In her mind, that was the very definition of luck. Bad luck.
They each pulled a tile out of the bag to determine who would go first. Jillian grabbed an E and her father a T.
“You’re up, Jills. The letter closest to A goes first. Take it easy on your poor dad. It’s been a long night.”
Jillian took seven tiles and placed them on her rack. CRCZJII. She shuffled the tiles in every possible way. Cici was a proper name—not acceptable. So was Ric. She wished there was a blank tile for Z, an A, and a U to spell jacuzzi, or a T to spell critic. Rizi looked like it might be a word but wasn’t. Five minutes passed.
“I can’t make a word,” she said.
“Not a single one?
“No.”
“That’s almost impossible on a first rack. A million-to-one occurrence.”
“No, just my bad luck,” she said.
Mr. Mermelstein looked down at his own rack: GHPQOAE.
He arranged the letters to read HOPE and turned the rack around for Jillian.
“Well how about that? One of your mother’s favorite words,” he said.
Jillian smiled slightly before gazing at her rack of letters and shaking her head in frustration.
“Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” her father asked. “I know I’m not around as much as I’d like to be right now. I’m used to hard work, but two jobs is a bit much, even for me.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately. About you, Mom, and me. Sometimes it helps, but sometimes it makes everything harder.”
“Same here. What were you thinking about?”
“All kinds of things. That day at the beach when we ate those snow cones.”
“Yeah, we all had neon blue tongues for hours afterward. It was a perfect day.”
“It was. And the bike rides in the woods. And how you and Mom always let me win at Uno,” she said, showing a hint of a grin.
“Yes, guilty as charged. You must have thought you were unbeatable. But no free ride with Scrabble, Jills. You’re on your own for that.”
“I know,” she said, looking down at the jumble of tiles and wishing her life was in order—back to how it used to be. “Everything is a big mess.”
“Not everything in life is supposed to make sense,” her father said.
“I miss Mom.”
“I miss her, too.” He placed his hand on Jillian’s.
They stared at each other for a while in the silence of the kitchen.
“Thanks for leaving me some of the rugelach,” he said. “It tasted just like hers. She taught you well.”
“I guess it was okay.” She pictured Jack scowling over the plate.
“I have something to give you.” He got up from the table and went straight to a roll-top desk in the living room.
He returned with a tattered spiral-bound notebook. From the Kitchen of Joan Mermelstein. Welcome, Dear Friends. There’s Plenty for All was written in purple ink on its white cover. Jillian let out a gasp at the sight of the notebook—a ghost from the past flooding her with the sounds and smells of those early Saturday mornings in the kitchen with her mother. She pressed it to her heart, where she kept it for several minutes. The notebook held family recipes her mother had carefully written down on dog-eared pages dotted with stray batter and drips of apricot and poppy seed filling. Jillian didn’t want to let the notebook go. It felt like hugging Mom again.
When Jillian finally laid it on the table, she recognized the gold glitter and pictures of unicorns she had glued to its front the day Joan of Hearts opened. She ran her fingers over her mother’s flowing handwriting covering every lined page, whispering the names of her favorite cookies, breads, pastries, and pies they had baked together: Joan’s Marvelous Mandelbrot, Glazed Lemon Babka, Krunch-Tastic Kichels, and, of course, her mother’s Chocolate Rugelach—the very recipe she had used for the class party. Jillian read out loud a special note her mother had written on the inside front cover:
To my dearest pâtissier,
What shall we bake together today?
Whatever you choose, I’ll be with you … always.
Love,
Mom
“I know it’s been hard thinking about baking without her,” her father said, “but she asked me to give this to you when I thought you were ready to bake again. Since you made …”
“I wasn’t quite ready,” Jillian said. “But Grandma Rita started putting out ingredients …”
“And you didn’t want the fire department here again.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
“Let’s finish this Scrabble game before I nod off,” her father said. “You know that you’re allowed to take seven new tiles for your next turn. It’s in the rules. You can always start with a fresh set of letters.”
And so she did.
Chapter 7
For Jack, winter break meant more time to bake. He experimented with new flavor combinations, mixing crystallized ginger with hazelnuts, pumpkin spice with lavender, lemon zest with espresso. Zombie Brunch blared from speakers in the kitchen as he imagined himself competing in the Bakerstown Bonanza. In his wildest visions, Jack stood before Phineas Farnsworth III as his idol announced the winning dessert:
“Never in the history of this competition have I tasted anything so … so … I don’t even think there’s a proper word for it. I’ll have to make one up … so delicioscrumptious! Of course I’m talking about Jack Fineman’s tiramisu toffee trifle—this year’s undisputed Bakerstown Bonanza winner! Jack, come up here. Everyone else can go home now!”
In Jack’s mind, streamers and a zillion balloons rained down upon him as he was presented with a treasure trove of prizes: a $150,000 check, a lifetime supply of ingredients, every kitchen gadget made by Farnsworth’s company, and an interview in Chef’s Monthly magazine.
But the best part was yet to come. His winning recipe would also be the featured dessert in the Farnsworth Best of the Bonanza, the annual cookbook containing the top contestants’ recipes. It had been published every year since the first event in 1944. To Jack, having his pastry displayed on the cover would be his ticket to fame. It was more important to him than the money, the gadgets, and all the free sugar in the world. A recipe with his name on the cover of the Farnsworth Best of the Bonanza would last forever.
Only one small detail stood in the way of Jack’s dream. The contest rules stated participants had to be at least eighteen years old. In the meantime, Jack studied his collection of all seventy-four editions of the Farnsworth Best of the Bonanza like an anthropologist examines artifacts pulled from ancient ruins. He crammed the pages of his scrapbook with notes about every winning recipe, looking for ideas to help him once he was picked.
Bruce wants to win the British Open. Chad dreams of riding his snowboard in the X Games. Me? I’m going to win the Bakerstown Bonanza … someday.
Sitting on the sofa, Jack reread the article from The Ardmore Star about the first baking contest held during the Ardmore County Fair in the Culinary Arts Pavilion. The event was the brainchild of Phineas Farnsworth, founder of the Farnsworth Baking Supply Company and the grandfather of Farnsworth III. A dozen women wearing identical checkered aprons and brown hairnets baked their favorite desserts using Farnsworth sugar and the company’s new mixing bowls. The winner, Edna Harberg from nearby Warsaw, Ohio, received a crisp $100 bill and a fifty-pound sack of sugar. According to the article, Phineas Farnsworth called her rhubarb pie “blissfully divine.”
The next year, thirty bakers participated and the attendance tripled. As the Farnsworth baking empire expanded, so did the contest. By the mid-1960s, thousands of people from around the country applied to be part of the “Nation’s Most Popular Baking Challenge,” as company brochures for the event bragged. Newspapers and women’s magazines covered the spectacle like it was the World Series. When the Bakerstown Bonanza grew too big for the fairgrounds, it was m
oved to the Samuel P. Ardmore Convention Center. The building’s auditorium could hold ten thousand people. Every seat was always filled.
At the age of four, Jack attended his first Bonanza, squeezing between rows of attendees to snag a spot where he could get a clear view of Farnsworth III, who took bites of each dessert before offering his opinions into a microphone.
From then on, Jack assumed the same position—front and center—mesmerized by the proceedings and eyeing each contestant for secrets. His favorite was George Erdmeyer, who dominated the competition with a five-layer pineapple torte with swirls of macadamia nut cream running throughout the lofty dessert. After winning the contest, Erdmeyer, a school janitor from McCutchenville, Montana, hosted his own cooking show, By George, Let’s Bake, on the Fab Food Network.
Jack closed the scrapbook and wrote down a story problem: Jack is eleven years old. Contestants must be at least eighteen. How many days must Jack wait to win the Bakerstown Bonanza?
He subtracted 11 from 18 and multiplied the remainder (7) by the number of days in a year (365). He buried his face in his hands at the sight of the answer.
“2,555 days,” he groaned. “A long 2,555 days.”
Chapter 8
As Jack entered homeroom after winter break, the word “rugelach” leaped to the front burner of his mind.
Jack glanced at Jillian. After looking through his baking scrapbook and watching past competitions on YouTube, he had come up with another theory as to why she couldn’t possibly have made the rugelach.
Why didn’t Jillian come forward and say so? Why make it if no one knows it was you? It’s like telling the world’s funniest joke to an empty room. What’s the point?
Jillian looked straight ahead. She echoed Grandma Rita’s reason why Jack had disliked her holiday offering: That boy wouldn’t know a decent rugelach if it jumped up and bit him in the tuchus!
“Okay, class. Time to get back to work,” Ms. Riedel said after the morning announcements. She wrote the word “entomology” on the chalkboard. “Does anyone know what this means?”
Jillian did but kept quiet. After the holiday party, she vowed that her days of getting noticed in class were over.
Chad cautiously raised his right hand.
“Uh, would that be the study of pastries?”
“Excuse me?” Ms. Riedel said.
“Like Entenmann’s. Entomology is the study of Entenmann’s, right? Their cheese Danish rules.”
The class tittered.
Jack shook his head, knowing that Chad wasn’t making a joke.
Not only can’t Jack judge a rugelach, but he also has a questionable choice of friends, Jillian thought.
Jack raised his hand. “It’s the study of insects,” he said.
“Bingo,” Ms. Riedel said.
“Wow, look who got a dictionary for Hanukkah,” Chad mumbled.
“Our next unit will be about the endlessly fascinating world of bugs,” Ms. Riedel continued. “Grasshoppers, ants, walking sticks, bees, fireflies. You name it, we’re going to study it! Creeping, flying, biting, stinging, burrowing, the whole nine yards.”
Jillian perked up. She had spent hours with her mother and father in their urban garden inspecting insects of all kinds. One year they watched as tiny praying mantises hatched out of an egg sac. Another time while visiting Grandma Rita, they saw red-eyed cicadas crawl out of the ground behind her petunia bed.
“These are seventeen-year cicadas,” her mother had told her. “We visited here the last time they came up, way before you were born. They were buzzing everywhere. We won’t see them again until you’re twenty-two years old. That’s because they live underground for seventeen years. Imagine that!”
Jillian watched her classmates. She noticed several students looked ill.
Victims of entomophobia, fear of insects. Or in Chad’s case, fear of baked goods.
“And we’ll be studying spiders, too,” Ms. Riedel said. “They’re arachnids, which have eight legs and two main body parts. Insects have six legs and three main body parts.”
A chorus of “ewww” erupted. Ms. Riedel pressed on.
“A spider’s body is covered with a cuticle, a hard outer shell that the spider sheds from time to time. When it forms a new cuticle, the old one cracks and the spider climbs out with a soft, brand-new skin.”
Cool, Jillian thought.
“We’re often scared of things we don’t understand,” Ms. Riedel said. “Consider this a chance to embrace and overcome your fears. Plus, there are way more insects than humans. The ratio is about two hundred million to one, so you might as well get to know your neighbors.”
Awesome, Jack thought, feeling slightly guilty for all the mosquitoes he had swatted last summer.
“Next Monday, you will do group presentations. I want you to be creative. Use your talents. For example, act out how bees behave in a hive. Write poems about butterflies. Put on a play about Goliath beetles in the Amazon rain forest. It’s up to you.”
Now Jillian felt ill. She was fine with the creative part. Working in a group with kids she barely knew—and didn’t want to know—would be worse than jostling a hornet’s nest.
“As part of Mix-It-Up Month, I’ve divided the class into groups of three. I jumbled your names using an app on my phone. There will be no switching and no arguments.”
Ms. Riedel handed out project folders with names written in black marker on the front.
“You have thirty minutes to discuss your projects before our math lesson.”
Jillian looked at her folder. The cover showed her name and two others: Jack Fineman and Chad Albertson. She knew exactly what she wished to do for the project. She wanted to turn into a seventeen-year cicada.
Chad and Jack sat next to Jillian in the back corner of the room. All Jillian could think about was Jack and the rugelach. All Jack could think about was Jillian and the rugelach. They had nothing to say to each other. After three minutes, Chad could no longer stand the silence.
“Okay, let me get this out of the way. I’m not doing an interpretive beehive dance. Not gonna happen.”
“Me neither,” Jack agreed. “Something like that goes viral and, boom, your life is over.”
“Or poems, like ‘An Ode to an Earwig,’” Chad continued. “Won’t do it.”
“Right with you, bro,” Jack said.
For the next five minutes, Jack and Chad rattled off a list of things they would not do: singing, acting, dancing, or anything involving puppets.
Jillian had heard enough.
“This is getting us nowhere,” she said. “Is there something you will do?”
Jack and Chad were taken aback by the forceful sound of Jillian’s voice. It wasn’t the whisper they had heard at the holiday party.
I will not get an F on the project because you guys can’t make up your minds, she thought.
“I suppose you have an idea,” Chad shot back. “I know, why don’t you make rugensplock—or whatever it is—with bugs in it.”
This time Chad was kidding.
“That’s it!” Jack said, nearly tumbling out of his chair. “Let’s do our project on insects as food. Lots of great chefs use bugs in their recipes.”
“You’ll get us expelled,” Chad said.
“No, wait! Hear me out! Cultures all over the world eat bugs—lots of them. Wax worms, grasshoppers, ants, katydids, dragonflies. They’re high in protein. And I bet they would make a cookie crunch.”
“Entomophagy,” Jillian said.
“What?” Chad asked. “I’m assuming that has nothing to do with crumb cake.”
“Entomophagy means humans eating insects,” she said.
“Did you borrow Jack’s new dictionary?”
Jack held up his phone. “Look, here’s a recipe for Chocolate Chirp Cookies with roasted crickets and honey.”
“I’m not sure I’m good with this,” Chad whined as the Twinkie and root beer he had consumed for breakfast did somersaults in his stomach.
“This is a chance to embrace your fears,” Jack said.
“Yeah, but bugs in cookies …”
“You can always do the beehive dance instead, Chad,” Jillian said.
“Fine, I’m in,” Chad groaned, slouching in the chair.
“So it’s settled,” Jack said. “Let’s meet at my house on Sunday to work on our project.”
Then I’ll know once and for all if Jillian knows her way around a kitchen.
At home in bed that night, Jillian flipped through her mother’s notebook and scanned the page of the chocolate rugelach recipe. There were special notes written up and down each side. Jillian recited them out loud:
“On a bad day, add an extra bar of chocolate.”
“What’s better than a batch of chocolate rugelach? A double batch, of course!”
“Dough should be properly chilled. So just chill, okay?”
“Be flaky. If it’s right for the rugelach, it’s right for you!”
“To make a good rugelach, you gotta learn to roll with it.”
“The filling is the heart of the rugelach. So give it your heart.”
This last note took Jillian back to Joan of Hearts Pastry Shop when she was seven, making rugelach for the first time.
After kneading the dough into a rectangle, Jillian cut it into four sections, put them in a plastic bag, and set it in the refrigerator.
“Now we wait for the dough to chill. Can you guess what’s next?” her mother asked.
“The chocolate?”
“Yes.”
She handed Jillian two bars of semisweet chocolate. Jillian placed them in a double boiler on the stove. A low flame licked the bottom of the pan as she dropped in two tablespoons of butter and sprinkled in cocoa and cinnamon.
“Now stir gently until it’s completely melted. Take your time. That’s right. Now add the sugar and the salt. Then mix.”
$150,000 Rugelach Page 3