Chapter 32
August
“So, now that we have all of our flavored sugar crystals dried and mixed the way we want them to, the real magic can begin,”
I said from my comfy highbacked seat in front of the cotton candy spinner. He’d carried it down from the dining from for me, so I’d have some lumbar support.
I had sticks lined up and gloves on, wax paper on the counter for the samples, which was all we’d be making tonight. With my recipe notes on the counter beside me, I turned the machine on, lifted the first batch of sugar crystals, and jotted the name on the label in my notebook so we could score it.
Maine Triple berry.
Ohh, okay, this was the mix of blueberry, blackberry and huckleberry which I hoped would become a regional favorite and a staple in the locally inspired section of my shop. Five cotton candy balls per pouch had been the number I’d decided on while three inches was the size I was shooting for. We’d see how I did once the spun sugar started flying. I might have to play with the speed settings, too, until I got the hang of making the sizes I needed.
Tonight was all about taste, though, and getting to share in this creation process with my mate for the very first time. As he eagerly watched the first tendrils form, I thought back to the day Olly had told me about his sweet tooth, and Ever had come in afterwards, chuckling about the way Olly had described his chocolate. While our conversation had been about him maybe needing to teach Olly how to make some, so he didn’t go broke buying big boxes of treats, the idea had immediately intrigued me.
Now I had the chance to experience it with Gregor.
“Which flavor is this one?”
“Nope, that’s not how it works,”
I explained. “I need to know what flavor you think it is after you taste it. I already know what it’s supposed to taste like, which biases the brain.”
“And explains why you’ve got all the labels facing toward you and I’m not allowed to touch the bottles.”
“Exactly. So, stay on your side of the bottle wall and wait to taste some spun sugar goodness,”
I teasingly admonished.
“Works for me.”
I studied him while he studied the cotton candy machine with the same look of wonder I pictured our children having the first time they saw it. In my head, I pictured a boy with rich, wavy chocolate brown hair and Gregor’s impish smirk huddled between his siblings as they waited for their treat to be ready.
A swirl of a cone and I plopped the first cotton candy ball on the wax paper and quickly spun another before turning off the machine.
Moment of truth.
“All right, go for it,”
I said, nudging one of the balls toward him before picking up the other. Color, consistency, everything looked and felt the way I’d hoped, melting beneath the heat of my fingers the longer they pressed into it.
Gregor didn’t waste time studying the cosmic purple color, the two shades, light and dark, had swirled together beautifully and truly given it a galaxy-like effect. He just took a bite and moaned, eyes going heavy-lidded as he sighed around the candy melting in his mouth.
“Ohh berry, berry nice,”
he moaned, mouth working like he was sucking on it until it melted completely.
The tip of his tongue was a little purple when he licked his lips, but he’d properly identified the basic concept, and that was what I’d hoped for. The flavor that hit when I bit into mine was beautifully intense, not too sweet, but not too sour, either. Like biting into a cold, juicy berry on a hot day.
“Blackberry, but more,”
Gregor muttered. “There’s blueberry in this, too, and something else, I swear I know the berry. It’s not cranberry, or raspberry either, damn, what the hell, we used to have them all the time when we went camping. What the hell was the name of those damn things?”
“Huckleberries?”
I suggested, grinning and giggling as I squirmed a little in my chair.
“Yes, fuckin’ huckleberries, you put huckleberries in this, it’s fuckin’ amazing. I’m so glad you didn’t think purple and go for grape. Nothing against grape, it’s grape, grape’s a classic, who doesn’t like grape, but a trio of fuckin’ berries is fuckin’ brilliant.”
“I don’t think I have ever heard you drop that many f-bombs in a row,”
I remarked after I’d finished my cotton candy ball. “You’d better not make it a habit or you’ll be the one sitting in the corner the first time one of the whelplets lets one loose.”
I loved the little blush that crept across the bridge of his nose as he licked the stickiness from his fingers.
“I know, and I won’t, but that was amazing.”
I’d nailed the profile. Fucking nailed it for him to lose control of his language that way. Him and that sweet tooth of his was already eying the bottles, waiting to see what flavor I’d choose next. Before I could do that, I used the stick to clean what was left of the triple berry cotton candy from the machine, swirling it into a smaller ball I gave to him while I set up for the next flavor and gave myself five stars for the last one.
We worked our way through the afternoon that way. Tangerine, lime pickle, watermelon, manic melon, which was another triple blend, this one involving cantaloupe, honeydew, and Casaba melon, which in both of our opinions hadn’t tasted melony enough. I made notes about potential alternatives in addition to adding more flavoring into the mix. The watermelon needed tweaking, too, like the manic melon the flavor had been just too weak.
Once the novelty of the process wore off, Gregor pulled out his sketchbook and started working on one of his projects, pausing each time I had a new flavor for him to try. I’d noticed him pressing the tiny bits of overage I gave him after each batch in a ball of sugar he was collecting and wondered what the hell he had planned for it.
“Hey, I meant to ask if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight,”
he blurted midway through the spinning of apple juice, a blend of sour green apple, honey crisp and macintosh. “There’s a little Italian restaurant by the maritime museum that has some amazing seafood dishes.”
Yes, yes I had done a lot of flavor blends for this, but plain old cotton candy flavors would be what the crowd expected and I was making my reputation off giving them the delightfully unexpected and dazzling their pallets with how much fun it could be to step away from the tried and true.
“Ohh, cheese and seafood together, that just sounds yummy.”
“I’ll set it up then.”
I turned my attention back to the apple juice balls while he made the reservation, his sample ready by the time he got off the phone. Six thirty would be perfect and give us a chance to shower after we cleaned up the machine. I’d definitely need his help for that.
“Hmmm, can you bottle this? Holy shit,”
he moaned when he bit into it. “Apple, all the apple, like getting fresh juice from the orchard, this is perfect. Too bad there isn’t a boozy version of cotton candy because this right here in an alcohol form would be a huge hit on cider days.”
“Spiked cotton candy, what the hell?”
I muttered, making a note as my mind whirled. “I mean, alcohol-infused sugar crystals are a thing so technically it would be possible, but that would take a type of licensing to sell I don’t have and another place to produce the batches since I wouldn’t be able to make them in the shop’s kitchen or on any of the machines.”
“True,”
he muttered. “This is delicious, though.”
“And your idea had a lot of merit,”
I said. “A cocktail line of cotton candy and maybe even a few other treats for adults would be absolutely amazing to pursue. I’ll be looking into the logistics. I can’t play with the flavor profiles for that until the whelplets are weened anyway. By then I’m sure a little cocktail tasting will be in order, and I’ll happily indulge in the name of product development.”
“I bet.”
“It does taste pretty amazing, though,”
I said after my first bite.
Another five-star flavor profile, there were already several on the list. Far more than the out and out fails, like lime pickle, that one had needed a few sips of water to rinse off the pallet. I’d have to play with that a lot to see if I could nail it or would have to come back to the pickle from a different angle.
“It really does.”
“Just three more left and we can clean up and start getting ready for dinner.”
“Bring ‘em on, though I think it might take a day or so before my tongue goes back to being the right color.”
I giggled as he checked it out in the camera on his phone. Orange in one spot, purple in another, he was right, it probably would take a day or two, and I might just laugh every time I saw it, too.
The next one was a bright, brilliant green, and I watched his mouth damn near turn inside out when he tasted my first attempt at sour acid candy, a wicked blend of green apple and watermelon and a dash of pickle. His eyes watered as he reached for the bottle by his hand and guzzled the last of his pop.
His tongue flicked out a few times and he smacked his lips, too, working his mouth, nose scrunching like he was still struggling to deal with the intensity of the flavor.
“Too sour I take it?”
I asked, my finger poised over the page, waiting for him to confirm so I could make my note.
“Don’t even taste it,”
he said. “Seriously, just, no, no no, no no no.”
“Now I have to taste it.”
“Better have your water bottle at the ready then.”
I did as he said, and pulled my bottle closer, took off the cap on the end of the straw, and prepared myself before taking a smaller bite than any of the ones I’d previously tasted.
Oh holy shit, fail, fail, fail!
It felt like my mouth was burning from all the citric acid, the sourness assailing my tongue as I swallowed and started gulping water down. I was gonna need to pee here in a minute, but a break was seriously in order after tasting that.
Not even half a star. I wrote no beside it because there was just no way of knowing where to start making adjustments with that one, everything about it was just sourly, painfully wrong.
“Oh goddess, that was awful,”
I moaned when I could speak again.
“I tried to warn you.”
“That was one of those times when I was too stubborn for my own good.”
“Yup.”
“You don’t have to be so quick to agree with me.”
“Meh, you’d do the same, and have, if the shoe was on the other foot.”
“You can keep all of your shoes after that, I don’t care which foot they’re on,”
I grumbled in between sips, wishing I has something I could run over my tongue, even if it was just a piece of lemon, to erase the lingering taste.
No, never mind, not lemon. I just hoped neither of the other two flavors were sour ones. Hmm. I studied the labels before choosing, where as before, I’d just grabbed one, glanced, jotted down the name and proceeded to pour.
Cinnamon candy and lemon zest?
Come on, universe, work with me here.
Groaning, I chose the cinnamon candy, though I knew the scent would give it away before he tasted it. At least it proved to be sweet and just spicy enough that the cinnamon shone through without being overpowering. After the citrus disaster, I needed a win, and the cinnamon candy was a solid three. A little bump in a few places and it would taste like red hots on a stick.
“That’s not bad,”
Gregor said. “I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon candy but it’s not bad. I wouldn’t turn it down if it was the only flavor left in the pack.”
“Good to know. It’s definitely a keeper even if it still needs a little work.”
“I saw you look real hard at the bottles before you picked it. The other one is gonna kick our asses, isn’t it?”
“Lemon zest.”
“You have a vendetta against my taste buds, don’t you? I won’t even be able to taste dinner tonight, you’re about to fry off the ones the mega sour didn’t nuke.”
Shrugging, I just grinned sheepishly and set up the machine for the final batch. “Sorry?”
“No you’re not.”
“I’m a little sorry the sour acid was so intense.”
“Uh huh, after we finish in here, we need to take a little detour out back to bury my tastebuds. You might want to think up a little eulogy for them now that they’ve sacrificed themselves to the candy gods.”
“It was a beautiful sacrifice, though,”
I said as I spun us up what could, indeed, kill off the remaining taste buds the previous sour batches didn’t scorch.
“If I can’t taste dinner tonight, I expect you to describe the favor profiles in exquisite detail, so I don’t leave the restaurant feeling like I just missed out on an amazing meal.”
“And if I can’t taste anything, either?”
“Then I guess we’ll have to rely on our noses to get any enjoyment out of it and make a new booking as soon as our tastebuds have recovered.”
“Sounds like a pretty good plan,”
he said as he brought the little yellow ball to his lips. “Here goes nothing.”
I watched his face when he took the bite, expecting to see it scrunch again only to see his shoulders heave as he sighed and let his eyes drift closed. “Hmmmm.”
No words, just a pleased sigh that sounded a lot like when I went down on him. Now that I knew it was safe, I took a normal sized bite and let all of that lemon wash over my tongue, like fresh squeezed lemonade, it was the perfect balance of sweet and sour.
Home run in the finale to end the tasting on a high note. With so many positive comments, I could confidently rule this a successful first batch. I’d enter all my notes into the laptop later and start a spreadsheet on the line. I’d need to work on these diligently if I wanted to get recipes to Gracie and have a chance to demonstrate the technique to her and observe her packaging up a few batches.
I’d decided on single flavor, dual flavor, and variety packs. The variety pack would have five different flavors in it. I intended to offer a few different variations of it, too, no flavors overlapping between packs. It should prove to be a fun way to introduce my customers to flavors they might not otherwise try.
“Now that was beautiful,”
Gregor murmured when he’d finished his. “Just like you.”
“A beautiful, sticky mess with stains coloring his fingers and tongue.”
“Not to mention his chin.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s just a few a streaks.”
“And you want me to go out in public this way?”
“We have to go, I’ve already made the reservation,”
he said, inching closer, until he’d framed my face with his sticky hands.
“And now you’re making me messier,”
I grumbled as he leaned in and ran his tongue over my chin.
“And cleaning you up at the same time.”
“Hmmm, yeah, that, too,”
I conceded as he tugged the collar of my t-shirt aside so he could drag his tongue over my shoulder.
“So it’s a wash,”
he murmured before he kissed me.
If this was what stalemates would be like with him, I looked forward to ending every debate this way.