In “The Ghost of Sugar and Stories,” Dina Drogin ’23 writes a compelling and poignant reflection on baking with her grandmother.
Every Friday after school, I would ride my bike to my grandmother’s house.
I had a reserved seat at her dining room table marked by a plate with one piece of airy vanilla sponge cake on a place mat. I’d shovel dessert into my mouth while listening to my grandmother, Bubbe, tell stories weighed down by her heavy Yiddish tongue. Often before hitting the climax, my mother would call my grandmother’s phone and summon me home for dinner.
“Thanks, Bubbe,” I would yell behind me, flinging my legs over my bicycle seat, my belly and brain simultaneously digesting both sugar and stories.
Middle school activities clouded my schedule. By high school, the habit ushered a slow death. Though I would desperately try to force a moment designated to spending time with Bubbe, our dates were not the same as elementary school. She couldn’t gather the strength to measure several cups of orange juice, whisk a dozen egg whites to soft peaks, and carry thick batter in a bundt pan in and out of the oven; there was no more cake to complement her stories. “Can you write the recipe down?” I’d ask her, hoping I could recreate her famous dessert.
“I don’t have a recipe,” she’d reply. “A little of this, a little of that. Whatever looks right.”
Baking is a science. So, I arrived at Bubbe’s house early, hoping to observe and help her bake one more cake. Each measurement was carefully estimated and recorded in my recipe book.
I took my first cake out of the oven to reveal charcoal brown edges surrounding a liquid center. My second attempt, though the texture was the cloudlike fluffiness that resembled Bubbe’s, tasted more bitter than sweet.
Shortly after Bubbe’s deterioration of strength took away our cake eating dates, dementia left me wanting to extract stories that were buried deep in her brain, but seemingly forgotten. Mentally, she faded away, leaving the shell of a person I once knew.
I tried making her cake in the weeks leading up to her death, but was discouraged that it wasn’t how I remembered each Friday afternoon.
The day of Bubbe’s funeral, my heart was left hungry and my eyes were salty. I attempted to make the sweet sponge cake. This time with her strategy: “A little of this, a little of that.” My whisk felt guided this time, vigorously scraping the sides of the bowl, turning the batter into a whirlpool. Orange juice measured itself to imperfectly perfect measurements. Slipping the pan into the oven, it felt lighter. After forty five minutes, I had recreated the same dessert that rested on the plate in Bubbe’s dining room table. Stories flooded my brain, as if she was sitting right across from me.