Summer Crumble

I have started to miss the invitations. My phone which was once a source of connection with friends and family has started to loose it’s hold on me. I have tunnel vision for the baby.

In the tides of here and now, there is one social ritual, I started after Beverly was born. I have managed to keep it going this Spring and into Summer.  Every odd Sunday, skip it when we need to, always once a month, I get together with my friend Katherine. We bake something and watch an old movie.

We start at 7am. It’s early for a Sunday, but it works for us. I descend the stairs holding the baby, in a milk-stained shirt, my feet still puffy from sleep, and I open the door to a friend. Katherine is as chipper in the morning as most people are after their second cocktail. She has a unique combination of poise and warmth like so many of the older movie stars we watch. 

She arrives, prepared, even if it’s just baking on a Sunday. She has read the recipe and I make sure we have all the ingredients. This past weekend, I used nearly all the blueberries I had from Pearl River Farm (a truly sacred blueberry patch in Mississippi with the kindest caretakers you’ve ever met), a few peaches from the Farmer’s Market, and some grocery store blackberries to make a crumble. 

The recipe came from 100 Morning Treats by Sarah Kieffer. She did two creative things to make it breakfasty: she toasted the granola separately, and she added yogurt to her whipped cream. That’s it. Otherwise it’s just dessert.

We prepared the crumble in an oversized paella pan and ate it on the couch while we watched Stage Fright. Seeing a masterful filmmaker, like Hitchcock, tease out a plot while eating a snappy crumble, I felt like a milk-drunk baby. While Beverly fell from my breast onto a pillow, my phone lay in another room, for another time. Not now. Marlene Dietrich had another one-liner for us. Snap. Ooze.