Chapter 18
Zander requests his first baking lesson on Saturday morning. He likes old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies, so I instruct him on how to properly mix them in the new mixer. The process goes well until he adds the flour. “Ahhh, help Summer!” Zander yells.
I turn around from grabbing the chocolate chips in the pantry to see flour everywhere, including covering Zander.
There’s an expression of shock and disbelief on his face as the mixer continues to spin.
I start to giggle, and soon I’m outright laughing at him.
“Turn it off,” I manage to get out between chuckles.
He turns the mixer off and points to me. “You told me to leave the mixer on when adding the ingredients.”
“I did. I guess I should have specified that the ingredients need to be added slowly,” I giggle.
“Well, obviously,” he chuckles, gesturing to himself.
After snapping a quick picture to send to Sue, I walk over to him. “Come on, I’ll help you clean up.” Grabbing a dish towel, I gather up the flour off the island. “Wipe the flour off your head and neck over the sink.”
After he’s dusted what he can out of his hair and shirt, Zander wipes his face and neck down with a wet cloth. I grab the mixing bowl and scoop out the contents into the garbage. “You’re throwing the whole mixture out?” he asks.
“Yeah. There’s no way to tell how much flour is missing, so we have to start over.”
“Well, damn,” he grumbles.
I smile at him. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll start over, and I’ll keep a closer eye on you this time. Can you grab a broom? I’ll wash the bowl.”
I stay beside Zander next time, and he mixes up a batch of cookies successfully.
We get them in the oven, and then he requests we bake snickerdoodles for Troy.
We have four dozen cookies by the time we finish.
Zander goes to grab a shower while I watch the last batch in the oven.
I shoot a text off to Sue with the picture of Zander covered in flour, and she gets a good laugh out of it.
He takes me to a local barbecue joint for lunch.
I choose the barbecue chicken, and Zander orders the ribs.
Barbecue in the South, I discover, is vinegar based, which is still good but surprising and much tangier than I’m used to.
I try one of his ribs, and both are delicious.
I much prefer the northern mayonnaise-based sauce, though.
He tells me stories about his summers with Mara and Philip as we enjoy our meal at an outdoor picnic table.
We decide to put the fire pit together in the afternoon. It takes a couple of hours to get the grass cleared, the ground levelled, and the actual pit built with the stones. We place the Adirondack chairs around it and end up cooking hot dogs for supper over the open flame and making s’mores.
That evening in front of the tv Zander puts on the second Marvel movie. It’s been a surprisingly good day.
I call Sue from bed when I wake up on Sunday morning. I tell her about everything I’ve been up to since we spoke last. After breakfast, I spend some time outside under the live oak tree.
Zander joins me after a few phone calls about his work and shows me where there used to be vegetable gardens in the backyard and encourages me to start my own.
He saved a bunch of Mara’s gardening stuff that he’s going to show me tomorrow.
We visit a beautiful plantation and gardens in the afternoon, and I learn my great grandma helped with the flower gardens years ago.
We take a tour and buy some fresh produce before heading home.