"Wow, that bad, huh?" I said.
"Yes, that bad," Chloe told me. She pawed through my cupboards and started taking out ingredients.
"You don't have the right nuts," she said finally.
"My nuts are great." She blushed, and I smirked.
"I need pecans, not almonds," she told me. "I bet you just pulled this recipe off of some random junk SEO blog, didn't you?"
"It was the first thing on Google," I admitted.
She wrote out a list for me. "I need these ingredients. Pecans, good pecans from Georgia. Unsalted. They are in season right now. And I need French sea salt from Guérande—not table salt.At least you didn't buy self-rising flour," she said, shaking her head.
"I didn't realize it was so complicated," I said.
"Baking is science," she explained. "It's not like regular cooking. The ingredients have to be measured precisely and be of a high quality. There is no margin for error."
"So no cookies." I sighed. I didn't need the sugar, but they were mainly nuts and butter, and that was practically keto, wasn’t it?
"Not these cookies," Chloe replied. She poked around in my cabinets. All of my meager spice collection was placed on the counter so that she could smell each one. Then Chloe pulled out the bags of sugar I had bought to test the frosting for the snow-maker attachment.
"I can make gingerbread cookies," she offered.
I wrinkled my nose then forced my expression to smooth down. "I don't like gingerbread," I said. "We had to eat it in school. It's gross. It has a weird aftertaste."
Chloe laughed. "I bet the cookies came out of a can and used fake vanilla and a spice liquid blend. You'll like my cookies," she said with a wink. "I promise."
She set everything out and started to bake.
I held as still as I could while I watched her. She was completely focused on the task at hand. What was interesting was how much she tested and tasted as she baked. She reminded me of the way I worked when I was designing a new product. I could see why she had such an enthusiastic fan club.
As the gingerbread dough came together, my apartment smelled like a Turkish bazaar. Milo sneezed while Chloe rolled out the caramel-colored gingerbread dough.
"You don't have the right pans either," she said as she checked the thickness of the dough. "Where's that list? Write this down—I need an insulated cookie sheet. You only have plain ones."
"These cookie sheets were expensive!" I protested.
She sniffed. "Expensive doesn't mean it's any good. Hopefully these cookies don’t burn. At least you have a convection oven and not just a microwave."
"I’m an adult; I have a kitchen," I said.
"Do you even cook?" she asked skeptically. I glanced over at the window then back at her. She raised an eyebrow.
"I bet the most cooking you've done is when you were butchering those cookies."
"I have a chef who makes food," I told her.
"Was that what was in those sad little containers? I should come back here and make you a nice home-cooked meal. You're making me feel sorry for you," she said, wagging her finger at me.
"What can I say? I'm a busy man. I don't have time to cook. Food is fuel."
"Food is home and family and tradition," she retorted.
"I don't want a lot of emotion wrapped up in my food," I countered. "I can't afford to have an existential crisis every time I eat a hamburger."
"You need to have a nice meal with people you care about," she said. "It will reset your internal food counter. Human beings are programed to gather and share around a meal." She waved me over to stand close to her. "You didn't have a cookie cutter, so I hand-cut them," she said, showing me the cookies. They were works of art.
"See, there's Milo, and there's you before you ate a cookie." She pointed to a grouchy-looking gingerbread man. The figures weren't the rounded gingerbread people I was used to. They were more lifelike. Her creations looked like a graphic design project.
