Baking Is My Passion Quotes

To my babies, Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be. -Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna. -Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point. -Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for. -I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name." -Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it. -And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once. -Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life. -Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers. -Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their choices, their personalities. Sometimes it takes a variety to make a good collection. The same goes for people. -Choose your battles, but don't choose very many. -Keep an open mind; it's the only way new things can get in. -And last but not least, not the tiniest bit least. Never regret. Thank you both for giving me the best years of my life. Especially the last one. Love, Mom

Some parents in our neighborhood do everything they can to keep their children away from violent images. And then, when something terrible happens, like murder or rape or genocide - well, then a conversation has to be had with these young innocents to explain that, yes, goodness is sometimes a fiction, like Santa Claus, and that humanity is, underneath all the cookie baking and song singing, a shameful and secret nastiness. Me, I'm going to raise my son differently. What he will be made to know is that there is violence in everything - even in goodness, if you're passionate about it.

My passion for cooking grew as my mother taught me how to make her chewy cranberry bread, Dijon mustard vinaigrette, and Nantucket quahog chowder thickened with chopped clams, potatoes, and sweet onions. Then it reached new heights in college when I took a year off to study French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I learned to master a mean spinach soufflé, make a perfect sauce Bordelaise, and craft authentic shiny chocolate-topped éclairs. When I was hired as the sous-chef at Le Potiron (The Pumpkin), a Parisian restaurant near Les Halles, I used my newfound skills to transform tough cuts of beef into tender stews, improvise with sweetbreads, and bake cakes from memory.

This is an art I can enjoy. There is a kind of sorcery in all cooking; in the choosing of ingredients, the process of mixing, grating, melting, infusing, and flavoring, the recipes taken from ancient books, the traditional utensils- the pestle and mortar with which my mother made her incense turned to a more homely purpose, her spices and aromatics giving up their subtleties to a baser, more sensual magic. And it is partly the transience of it delights me; so much loving preparation, so much art and experience, put into a pleasure that can last only a moment, and which only a few will ever fully appreciate. My mother always viewed my interest with indulgent contempt. To her, food was no pleasure but a tiresome necessity to be worried over, a tax on the price of our freedom. I stole menus from restaurants and looked longingly into patisserie windows. I must have been ten years old- maybe older- before I first tasted real chocolate. But still the fascination endured. I carried recipes in my head like maps. All kinds of recipes: torn from abandoned magazines in busy railway stations, wheedled from people on the road, strange marriages of my own confection. Mother with her cards, her divinations, directed our mad course across Europe. Cookery cards anchored us, placed landmarks on the bleak borders. Paris smells of baking bread and croissants; Marseille of bouillabaisse and grilled garlic. Berlin was Eisbrei with sauerkraut and Kartoffelsalat, Rome was the ice cream I ate without paying in a tiny restaurant beside the river.

My mother is finally rolling out her kulebiaka dough, maneuvering intently on a dime size oasis of kitchen counter. I inhale the sweetish tang of fermented yeast once again and try to plumb my unconscious for some collective historical taste memory. No dice. There's no yeast in my DNA. No heirloom pie recipes passed down by generations of women in the yellowing pages of family notebooks, scribbled in pre-revolutionary Russian orthography. My two grandmothers were emaciated New Soviet women, meaning they barely baked, wouldn't be caught dead cooking 'czarist.' Curious and passionate about food all her life, Mom herself only became serious about baking after we emigrated. In the USSR she relied on a dough called na skoruyu ruku ('flick of a hand'), a version involving little kneading and no rising. It was a recipe she'd had to teach her mother. My paternal babushka, Alla, simply wasn't interested.

It was my father who called the city the Mansion on the River. He was talking about Charleston, South Carolina, and he was a native son, peacock proud of a town so pretty it makes your eyes ache with pleasure just to walk down its spellbinding, narrow streets. Charleston was my father’s ministry, his hobbyhorse, his quiet obsession, and the great love of his life. His bloodstream lit up my own with a passion for the city that I’ve never lost nor ever will. I’m Charleston-born, and bred. The city’s two rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper, have flooded and shaped all the days of my life on this storied peninsula. I carry the delicate porcelain beauty of Charleston like the hinged shell of some soft-tissued mollusk. My soul is peninsula-shaped and sun-hardened and river-swollen. The high tides of the city flood my consciousness each day, subject to the whims and harmonies of full moons rising out of the Atlantic. I grow calm when I see the ranks of palmetto trees pulling guard duty on the banks of Colonial Lake or hear the bells of St. Michael’s calling cadence in the cicada-filled trees along Meeting Street. Deep in my bones, I knew early that I was one of those incorrigible creatures known as Charlestonians. It comes to me as a surprising form of knowledge that my time in the city is more vocation than gift; it is my destiny, not my choice. I consider it a high privilege to be a native of one of the loveliest American cities, not a high-kicking, glossy, or lipsticked city, not a city with bells on its fingers or brightly painted toenails, but a ruffled, low-slung city, understated and tolerant of nothing mismade or ostentatious. Though Charleston feels a seersuckered, tuxedoed view of itself, it approves of restraint far more than vainglory. As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metalwork as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter.

Look at that ship. That clipper cost me a queen’s ransom, even with the Kestrel thrown in the bargain. But it was the fastest ship to be had.” He took her hands in his. “Forget money. Forget society. Forget expectations. We’ve no talent for following rules, remember? We have to follow our hearts. You taught me that.” He gathered her to him, drawing her hands to his chest. “God, sweet, don’t you know? You’ve had my heart in your pocket since the day we met. Following my heart means following you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to.” He shot an amused glance at the captain. “Though I’d expect your good captain would prefer I didn’t. In fact, I think he’d gladly marry us today, just to be rid of me.” “Today? But we couldn’t.” His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, but we could.” He pulled her to the other side of the ship, slightly away from the gaping crowd. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, “Happy birthday, love.” Sophia melted in his embrace. It was her birthday, wasn’t it? The day she’d been anticipating for months, and here she’d forgotten it completely. Until Gray had appeared on the horizon, she hadn’t been looking forward to anything. But now she did. She looked forward to marriage, and children, and love and grand adventure. Real life and true passion. All of it with this man. “Oh, Gray.” “Please say yes,” he whispered. “Sophia.” The name was a caress against her ear. “I love you.” He kissed her cheek and pulled away. “I’ve been remiss in not telling you. You can’t know how I’ve regretted it. But I love you, Sophia Jane Hathaway. I love you as no man ever loved a woman. I love you so much, I fear I’ll burst with it. In fact, I think I shall burst if I go another minute without kissing you, so if you’ve any mind to say yes, I’d thank you to-“ Sophia flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard at first, to quiet the fool man; then gently, to savor him. oh, how she loved the taste of him, like freshly baked bread and rum. Warm and wholesome and comforting, with just a hint of spice and danger. “Yes,” she sighed against his lips. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Yes, I will marry you.” His arms tightened about her waist. “Today?” “Today. But you must let me change my gown first.” Smiling, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You even shaved.” “Every day since we left Tortola.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve a few new scars to show for it.” “Good.” She kissed him. “I’m glad. And I don’t care if society casts us out for the pirates we are, just as long as I’m with you.” “Oh, I don’t know that we’ll be cast out, exactly. We’re definitely not pirates. After your stirring testimony”-he chucked her under the chin-“Fitzhugh decided to make the best of an untenable situation. Or an unhangable pirate, as it were. If he couldn’t advance on his career by convicting me, he figured he’d advance it by commending me. Awarded me the Kestrel as salvage and recommended me to the governor for a special citation of valor. There’s talk of knighthood.” He grinned. “Can you believe it? Me, a hero.” “Of course I believe it.” She laced her fingers at the back of his neck. “I’ve always known it, although I should curse that judge and his ‘citation of valor.’ As if you needed a fresh supply of arrogance. Just remember, whatever they deem you-gentleman or scoundrel, hero or pirate-you are mine.” “So I am.” He kissed her soundly, passionately. “And which would you prefer tonight?” At the seductive grown in his voice, shivers of arousal swept down to her toes. “Your gentleman? Your scoundrel? Your hero or your pirate?” She laughed. “I imagine I’ll enjoy all four on occasion. But tonight, I believe I shall find tremendous joy in simply calling you my husband.” He rested his forehead against hers. “My love.” “That, too.

She designed the cakes and I worked out the recipes. The first year we each created a signature cake. Genie's was called the Goddess: really tall, all white on the outside, wrapped in mountains of coconut and whipped cream, with a passion-fruit heart." "And yours was called the Shrinking Violet. Unassuming on the outside but pretty special once you worked your way in." She reached over and squeezed my wrist. "Wish I'd thought of that. You'd understand if you knew my sister." By now I was a little drunk. "One year Genie came up with Melting Cakes. You know, like flourless chocolate, the kind that are melted in the middle? They were gorgeous neon colors, and I made the flavors intense- blood orange, blueberry, lime, hibiscus, and caramel.

know that I was once someone who loved to dance in the kitchen whilst I baked,” I say, my voice catching. “I was once someone who laughed at stupid jokes until her belly ached and tears poured from her eyes. I was once a girl who liked to walk in the rain, who loved to watch the sun set, who collected china dolls, who found pleasure in the simple things life offered. I was someone who loved tulips and strawberry cheesecake, who would like to go on picnics and drink red wine, and eat smelly cheese, who would sing badly in the shower, who’d wear the clothes she loved, not the ones I was forced to wear. I was once a woman who had passion in her heart and fire in her soul. Now look at me.

i started to feel less embarrassed about all the weird things i did, like suddenly singing songs with absolutely no context, and my bottomless database of random encyclopaedic facts and that one time i started a four-hour-long text conversation about why cheese was a food. i kept teasing him for having such long hair until he said one day, quite decisively, that he actually wanted it to be long, so i stopped teasing him after that. we played video games or board games or watched youtube videos or films or tv shows, we baked cakes and biscuits and ordered takeaway. we could only do stuff at his house when his mum wasn’t in, so we were at my house most of the time. he’d sit through me screaming along to moulin rouge and i'd sit through him reciting every line from back to the future. i tried to learn the guitar using his guitar, but gave up because i was shit. he helped me paint a night-time cityscape mural on my bedroom wall. we watched four seasons of the office. we sat in each other’s rooms with our laptops on our legs; he kept falling asleep at random times of the day; i kept persuading him that just dance sessions were a good idea; we discovered that we were both very passionate about monopoly. i didn’t do any homework when i was with him. he didn’t do any uni reading when he was with me. but at the heart of it was universe city. 

i started to feel less embarrassed about all the weird things i did, like suddenly singing songs with absolutely no context, and my bottomless database of random encyclopaedic facts and that one time i started a four-hour-long text conversation about why cheese was a food. i kept teasing him for having such long hair until he said one day, quite decisively, that he actually wanted it to be long, so i stopped teasing him after that. we played video games or board games or watched youtube videos or films or tv shows, we baked cakes and biscuits and ordered takeaway. we could only do stuff at his house when his mum wasn’t in, so we were at my house most of the time. he’d sit through me screaming along to moulin rouge and i'd sit through him reciting every line from back to the future. i tried to learn the guitar using his guitar, but gave up because i was shit. he helped me paint a night-time cityscape mural on my bedroom wall. we watched four seasons of the office. we sat in each other’s rooms with our laptops on our legs; he kept falling asleep at random times of the day; i kept persuading him that just dance sessions were a good idea; we discovered that we were both very passionate about monopoly. i didn’t do any homework when i was with him. he didn’t do any uni reading when he was with me. but at the heart of it was universe city. 

The director said wonderful things about you, that you're very talented," I say, and then smell the cardamom Garrance had given me, and I'm instantly put into a trance from green, earthy, and perfumed aromas. It's like all my troubles are gone. I'm in India, envisioning dances and beautiful saris and delicious naan bread baked on hot coals. Charles taps me on the shoulder. "Kate, where did you go?" I wobble. "I think I was in Mumbai for a second. Maybe Chennai? I don't know. I've never been to India. I've just seen pictures in magazines." He places his hands on my shoulders. "Spices transport you?" "Yes," I say, still a little bit out of it. "Hers do." He grips my shoulders, pulls me in closer. I smell his vanilla scent, and my knees turn to butter. "And I now know why my mother likes you. It makes perfect sense. She was right." "About what?" I ask, breathing him. "Working together and letting go of the bad energy. I know we can do this." His eyes spark with a passionate fire, and he smiles, his dimple puckering. I might melt like fondue. "Let's create a meal for her---the best one she's ever had." He leans against the stove, his sexy, smoldering hazel eyes meeting mine. My neck goes hot. I race over to the prep station and pick up the bag of cardamom, breathe it in---earthy, sweet, smoky, and nutty. Big mistake. Because I'm now licking his muscled chest in one of my deranged fantasies, which is so wrong. I throw the bag down, and the grains scatter on the countertop. Charles saunters over and places a hand on my shoulder. "Kate, everything okay?" "Cool, cool, cool," I say. I shrug off his touch, dip around his shoulder, noticing how V-shaped he is. "I was thinking we add this into the peanut sauce for the satay." "Good idea," he says. "Grind it. Nice and fine." Stop. Stop talking with your lilting English accent. Stop smiling. I'm staring at his hands, his lips, his eyelashes. My mind, my thoughts, and my body are about to explode. "Kate, can you pass me the chilis? My mother likes things spicy." "So do I," I say, reaching for it. Our hands touch as I hand him the spice. I shiver. "Me too," he says with a teasing growl. "And I know you added more pepper into my dish the other day. Good thing I can handle the heat." I can't. It's getting way too hot in here.

We also ate well in the kitchen, and I found that I had inherited my father's palate and appreciation of good food. Our cuisine at home always been rather basic, even in the days when we had a cook, and I became fascinated with the process of creating such wonderful flavors. "Show me how you made that parsley sauce, those meringues, that oyster stew," I'd say to Mrs Robbins, the cook. And if she had a minute to spare, she would show me. After a while, seeing my willingness as well as my obvious aptitude for cooking, she suggested to Mrs Tilley that her old legs were not up to standing for hours any more and that she needed an assistant cook. And she requested me. Mrs Tilley agreed, but only if she didn't have to pay me more money and I should still be available to do my party piece whenever she entertained. And so I went to work in the kitchen. Mrs Robbins found me a willing pupil. After lugging coal scuttles up all those stairs, it felt like heaven to be standing at a table preparing food. We had a scullery maid who did all the most menial of jobs, like chopping the onions and peeling the potatoes, but I had to do the most basic of tasks- mashing the potatoes with lots of butter and cream until there wasn't a single lump, basting the roast so that the fat was evenly crisp. I didn't mind. I loved being amongst the rich aromas. I loved the look of a well-baked pie. The satisfaction when Mrs Robbins nodded with approval at something I had prepared. And of course I loved the taste of what I had created. Now when I went home to Daddy and Louisa, I could say, "I roasted that pheasant. I made that apple tart." And it gave me a great rush of satisfaction to say the words. "You've a good feel of it, I'll say that for you," Mrs Robbins told me, and after a while she even sought my opinion. "Does this casserole need a touch more salt, do you think? Or maybe some thyme?" The part I loved the best was the baking. She showed me how to make pastry, meringues that were light as air, all sorts of delicate biscuits and rich cakes.

What would you do if you could snap your fingers and make it all different?" Melody didn't even hesitate. "Open my own place. French-inspired, most likely, with all those amazing pastries I fell in love with in Paris. Maybe light lunch fare. Hearty bread, the way it's supposed to be done- heirloom wheat baguettes baked bien cuit, that point just before burnt where the crust gets rich and caramelly.

Every New Year's Day, my parents had a big party, and their friends came over and bet on the Rose Bowl and argued about which of the players on either team were Jewish, and my mother served her famous lox and onions and eggs, which took her the entire first half to make. It took her so long, in fact, that I really don't have time to give you the recipe, because it takes up a lot of space to explain how slowly and painstakingly she did everything, sautéing the onions over a tiny flame so none of them would burn, throwing more and more butter into the pan, cooking the eggs so slowly that my father was always sure they wouldn't be ready until the game was completely over and everyone had gone home. We should have known my mother was crazy years before we did just because of the maniacal passion she brought to her lox and onions and eggs, but we didn't. Another thing my mother was famous for serving was a big ham along with her casserole of lima beans and pears. A couple of years ago, I was in Los Angeles promoting Uncle Seymour's Beef Borscht and a woman said to me at a party, "Wasn't your mother Bebe Samstat?" and when I said yes, she said, "I have her recipe for lima beans and pears. " I like to think it would have amused my mother to know that there is someone in Hollywood who remembers her only for her lima beans and pears, but it probably wouldn't have. Anyway, here's how you make it: Take 6 cups defrosted lima beans, 6 pears peeled and cut into slices, 1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup chicken stock, 1/2 onion chopped, put into a heavy casserole, cover and bake 12 hours at 200*. That's the sort of food she loved to serve, something that looked like plain old baked beans and then turned out to have pears up its sleeve. She also made a bouillabaisse with Swiss chard in it. Later on, she got too serious about food- started making egg rolls from scratch, things like that- and one night she resigned from the kitchen permanently over a lobster Cantonese that didn't work out, and that was the beginning of the end.

To my babies, Merry Christmas. I’m sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn’t leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn’t able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be. —Don’t stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna. —Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you’ve found that, Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point. —Push your boundaries, that’s what they’re there for. —I’m stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. “Always remember there is nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name.” —Don’t take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it. —And laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once. —Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life. —Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don’t have questions, you’ll never find answers. —Be accepting. Of everything. People’s differences, their similarities, their choices, their personalities. Sometimes it takes a variety to make a good collection. The same goes for people. —Choose your battles, but don’t choose very many. —Keep an open mind; it’s the only way new things can get in. —And last but not least, not the tiniest bit least. Never regret. Thank you both for giving me the best years of my life. Especially the last one. Love, Mom acknowledgments To Abigail Ehn with Poetry Slam, Inc. for answering all of my questions with lightning speed.

She put so much love and magic into her baking. I bet you all had your favorite-" Kat tries to swallow her tears but she can't. "Pistachio cream croissants!" Noa shouts out. Kat blinks, scanning the crowd for the perpetrator and sees Noa looking up at her, grinning. Kat nods. "My favorite too." She looks out at the congregation again, blinking back her tears. "Zucchini and caramelized onion pizza!" someone else shouts. Kat sniffs, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Tiramisu cheesecake!" "Vanilla and elderflower brownies!" "Cinnamon and nutmeg biscuits!" "Spiced chocolate cake!" Kat starts to smile. She looks out at the congregation, at their happy, memory-filled faces, the taste of Cosima's baking still on their tongues, and feels her heart begin to lift. "Passion fruit and pear cannoli!" "Chocolate and pistachio cream cupcakes!" shouts Amandine. "Dough twists dipped in Nutella!" Heloise calls out.

I'd love to cook," she says, "but who has the time? I can't afford to spend two days baking a cake." The implication, of course, is that only unimportant people have that kind of time. Unimportant people like me. I wait for Adam to jump in and save me, but instead he shoves a forkful of lamb into his mouth and feigns deep interest in the contents of his dinner plate. For someone with Adam's political ambitions and penchant for friendly debate, I'm always amazed at the lengths he goes to avoid confrontation with his parents. "I have a full-time job," I say, offering Sandy a labored smile, "and somehow I manage." Sandy delicately places her fork on the table and interlaces her fingers. "I beg your pardon?" My cheeks flush, and all the champagne and wine rush to my head at once. "All I'm saying is... we make time for the things we actually want to do. That's all." Sandy purses her lips and sweeps her hair away from her face with the back of her hand. "Hannah, dear, I am very busy. I am on the board of three charities and am hosting two galas this year. It's not a matter of wanting to cook. I simply have more important things to do." For a woman so different from my own mother- the frosted, well-groomed socialite to my mother's mousy, rumpled academic- she and my mother share a remarkably similar view of the role of cooking in a modern woman's life. For them, cooking is an irrelevant hobby, an amusement for women who lack the brains for more high-powered pursuits or the money to pay someone to perform such a humdrum chore. Sandy Prescott and my mother would agree on very little, but as women who have been liberated from the perfunctory task of cooking a nightly dinner, they would see eye to eye on my intense interest in the culinary arts. Were I a stronger person, someone more in control of her faculties who has not drunk multiple glasses of champagne, I would probably let Sandy's remark go without commenting any further. But I cannot be that person. At least not tonight. Not when Sandy is suggesting, as it seems everyone does, that cooking isn't a priority worthy of a serious person's time. "You would make the time if you wanted to," I say. "But obviously you don't.

Sanna measured the apple juice into a large glass beaker and added it to the carboy, swirling a cheery red- like Santa's suit. She wrote down the amount in her notebook and did the same with the next juice, this one a bold sapphire blue, which mixed with the red into a vivid purple. When it came to cider, colors and flavors blended together for her. She knew she had the right blend when it matched the color she had envisioned. It wasn't scientific- and it didn't happen with anything else Sanna tasted- but here, with her beloved trees, it worked. She carefully tracked the blends in her journal. The sun streamed through the window, lighting up the colors in the carboy like Christmas lights. She was close- one more juice should do it. She closed her eyes, calling to mind all the juices in the barn's cooler and their corresponding colors. Every juice she tasted from their apples had a slightly different hue, differing among individual varieties, but even varying slightly from tree to tree. When she was twenty-four, she had stood at the tall kitchen counter tasting freshly pressed juices she had made for the first time with the press she had unearthed from the old barn. Her plan had originally been to sell them in the farm stand, but she wanted to pick the best. As she sipped each one, an unmistakable color came to mind- different for each juice- and she finally understood the watercolor apple portraits above the fireplace. They were proof she wasn't the only family member who could see the colors. After she explained it to her dad, he smiled. "I thought you might have the gift." "You knew about this?" "It's family legend. My dad said Grandpa could taste colors in the apples, but no one in my lifetime has been able to, so I thought it might be myth. When you returned home after college- the way you were drawn to Idun's- I thought you might have it." He had put his hands on the side of her face. "This means something good, Sanna." "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't I know before?" "Would you have believed me?" "I've had apple juice from the Rundstroms a thousand times. Why can't I see that with theirs?" "I think it has something to do with apples from our land. We're connected to it, and it to us." Sanna had always appreciated the sanctuary of the orchard, and this revelation bonded Sanna like another root digging into the soil, finding nourishment. She'd never leave. After a few years of making and selling apple juice, Sanna strolled through the Looms wondering how these older trees still produced apples, even though they couldn't sell them. They didn't make for good eating or baking- Einars called them spitters. Over the years, the family had stopped paying attention to the sprawling trees since no one would buy their fruit- customers only wanted attractive, sweet produce. Other than the art above the mantel, they had lost track of what varieties they had, but with a bit of research and a lot of comparing and contrasting to the watercolors and online photos, Sanna discovered they had a treasure trove of cider-making apples- Kingston Black, Ashton Bitter, Medaille d'Or, Foxwhelp, her favorite Rambo tree, and so many more. The first Lunds had brought these trees to make cider, but had to stop during Prohibition, packing away the equipment in the back of their barn for Sanna to find so many years later. She spent years experimenting with small batches, understanding the colors, using their existing press and carboys to ferment. Then, last year, Einars surprised her with plans to rebuild the barn, complete with huge fermentation tanks and modern mills and presses. Sanna could use her talent and passion to help move their orchard into a new phase... or so they had hoped.

Their names may have been the same, but as they liked to reiterate in interviews, the Ruperts had their own distinct personalities. Rupert P.’s likes and passions began and ended with juggling. Rupert X. was the pretty boy/rebel. Rupert L. couldn’t tell time. And Rupert K. was … well, he was a life ruiner. Rupert K. was beautiful. He had ruddy cheeks, but the cute kind that looked like he’d always just come from running a marathon out in the cold. He’d had braces when he was twelve, so his teeth were straight and perfect. He had brown hair that he liked to keep short and that he was always pushing back off his forehead, especially when he didn’t want to answer a television interviewer’s question. He loved fantasy video games, folk music, and baking thumbprint cookies with his grandma. When he smiled, sometimes he would bite the inside of his right cheek. He had a beauty mark on the nape of his neck, right where his heartbeat pulsed on his carotid artery. It was the shape of California and the size of a pinkie nail. Recently, he’d taken to wearing porkpie hats on the crown of his head, something his fans were now copying. He wore sunglasses a lot because his pale green eyes were super sensitive to the sun. He had a tiny scar beneath his lower lip that he got when he fell off the jungle gym when he was six. And he seemed to take pleasure in ruining my life with how perfect he was. Like I said. He was a life ruiner. All of the aforementioned things would’ve been enough to have me melting over him, but what really put Rupert K. into the man-of-my-wildest-dreams category was something he’d said in one of the first interviews he’d done.