from mormor’s kitchen
The Gingerbread Disaster
It was a few days before Christmas and I
was 6 years old. I woke up very early with
one thought in my head: I want to bake
gingerbread cookies.
The whole idea came from a favorite
record that I had listened to as a
child, a story by the Norwegian writer
Thorbjorn Egner. In it, is a rabbit that
bakes and sings a song about how to
make gingerbread cookies. So at six in
the morning on that fateful day, I went
downstairs to the kitchen with my little
record player and that record.
I found the big baking bowl that my
grandmother had used for baking and
turned on the record. It didn’t take very
long after that for the kitchen countertop,
floor and, surprisingly, the ceiling to host
a celebrated mix of flour, sugar, eggs and
cinnamon. Of course, the song was not a
real recipe, but how was I to know at such
a young age?
My grandmother and mother later told me
how they had been woken up by the sound
of the same song playing over and over
again—only to find me in the midst of such
a mess. I thought they would be angry;
after all, my grandmother would no doubt
have to spend upward of a week to clean up
after me. But instead, they said, they had
both burst out in laughter.
After giving me a scrub down in the tub
and straightening up the disaster area,
we spent the rest of the day baking real
gingerbread cookies. I can still close my
eyes and remember the smell of cinnamon
and pepper.
BY PAUL LOWE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCES JANISCH
