MERINGUE AND I

I think my husband decided to pursue me for his bride because he needed a cook. Although I was only age 15 and he 20 and already working for the railroad, probably what did it was the apple pie I made and took to a church supper. Guess he didn’t know I couldn’t cook much else. We married after I reached 16, which my Dad thought sounded better than 15, and God tried to teach me patience through cooking. I think what I really learned was creativity and ingenuity.Take for instance the first chocolate cake. I used the recipe on the back of the cocoa box and I didn’t notice high altitude instructions. My creation looked like the top of a volcano. Not to worry. I just turned a saucer up-side-down on the cake plate and put on the caved-in layers. After the chocolate frosting, my husband thought I had a masterpiece—at least until he cut it.There was no remedy for the first fried chicken that ended up raw in the middle and burned on the outside. But I’m tenacious and kept right on cooking, reading my little Pillsbury leaflets, asking questions and watching other ladies efficient in the kitchen. I discovered after I bought a recipe book I could make nearly anything—except meringue.The first time the lightly browned froth melted over my banana cream pie, oozing water on top and around the edges, I thought I messed up the recipe. I love meringue! My husband loves cream pies. So I divided egg whites from yolks, whipped them, and added all sorts of different ingredients cooks told me worked to make the sweet fluff perfect.Over and over and over I tried, and every time my pie was covered with tears. Some were mine; the remainder— egg whites that decided to revert to their original state.Maybe it was the chickens. Eggs are potential chickens, and chickens and I never had a good relationship, even when as a kid I gathered eggs. Roosters never liked me. I was flogged so many times I once jumped a fence taller than my head to get away from an angry Papa Chicken. Could somehow chickens put hatred into their DNA and allow me to reap it?Naw.  I’d read in the Bible, “Tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.”

Romans 5:3,4