Although I would love that to be the nickname bestowed upon me by a special friend, I am in fact referring to today's dessert, moelleux aux chocolat. My old girlfriend, when she would come over from Italy, would make it for the kids and me. After we broke up she had left one last box in the cupboard. This morning Ava asked if we could make it tonight and I said yes but was more than half-way hoping that she'd forget about it. The Italian directions seemed crazily complicated for a mix: leave the eggs out until they reach room temperature, butter and dust with flour the four "stampini," molds (or "ramekins" in English, one of my favorite obscure words), stick the chocolate in boiling water for ten minutes while you mix the cake mix with two eggs. And of course it had to be 220 C. for a gas stove so I had to run to the computer and figure out that that meant 428 F.
Sundays are already kind of hard for me. The kids are usually pretty great but still most all weekend long I'm on duty alone all day long so by late Sunday my patience is usually worn down to a nub. Ava wanted to help cook so she started to crack open an egg. When Chet discovered what she was up to he rushed in and demanded to crack the other egg. They started to fight about it because she'd already begun the second one and it was starting to look ugly until I deputized him to prepre the ramekins with the butter and flour.
The kids were excited. It's their #1 favorite dessert, however I wasn't in the moment. I was watching the clock to see if I could finish the mix, feed them their dinners of soup (lentil for her, chicken noodle for him), the dessert, and then separate baths (as of last month) and washing and conditioning and combing out and parting Ava's hair, reading Chet a story (part four of the Narnia Chronicles, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader") and then my own dinner and then back to work till 11:30 and bed.
Then I stopped myself. I was baking with my wondrful kids and I'd better stop and remember this. In fact it was pretty easy to make and as I spatulaed the gunk into the four ramekins Chet, especially, hovered over the bowl ready to pounce and lick the bowl. I had such a nice flash of my mother and me. I left them then bowl and the spatula and put the cake-lets into the oven.
That's when I heard the screaming. They were yanking on the bowl from opposite sides of the table, "No! That's not the middle of the table! THIS is the middle of the table!" I started a slow burn.
"Kids," I said, calmly, and more than once. "Cut it out."
They kept on yanking and whining and shouting until I roared, "ENOUGH!"
Silence. Then tears. Did I just turn a happy childhood memory into yet another session with their future shrink? Ava ran out of the room vowing not to touch the dessert.
I explained that I had warned them and of course she came around and when the little cakes came out of the oven, smelling like everything good and tasting like wealth, all was forgiven by everybody all around.
