Sprinkles and Sugar and Sick Little Sweets

“On a christmas morning like none other, a stream of sugar came over the porch.”

No. That wasn’t it. Opel thought. It doesn't sound right,, and porch isn’t probably the best word. Maybe a door, but that wouldn’t make much sense. 

But Opel’s thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Opel rushed out of his “Writing Cove” as he called it, and ran through the hallway, beside the couch in the living room, and finally to the door. He swung it open to see the mail truck driving away. Opel slowly walked to the mailbox, now not in a rush to see what the mailman had delivered. Opel shuffled through the mail. “Advertisement, scam mail, writers magazine (which I’ll read soon)” Opel muttered. But his hand stopped at an envelope. It was white with a red seal, and had a vintage stamp on it from the 1980’s. On it was finely written handwriting of Opel’s home address, but there was no return address. Opel carefully took off the red seal, and pulled out the single sheet of paper on it. The same handwriting was all across the page. Opel read it:

“Hello grandson. I know that by now I’m long dead, but I asked your mother to share this with you this Christmas. The following is an exact replica of that cookie you always loved. I’m talking about the red one, but not so red it looked like blood, and not too light where it looked pink. The one with the perfect amount of cinnamon, where it was plentiful in amount yet didn’t override the taste. The one with the perfect crispy outside and fluffy and soft inside. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your mother never told me exactly how she made this cookie, but the truth is, I passed along the recipe. Now it’s your turn. Merry Christmas, Opel.”

The letter ended with his grandpa’s signature. Opel had never actually known his grandpa much since he’d lived in London and only visited Opel about three times in his life, the first two all before he could remember. But he had died at the ripe age of 86. Opel remembered getting the news, yet not knowing how to react since he’d never really known him very well. But this news shocked him. He did remember the cookie, and it was the best thing he had ever tasted, even to date. And as far as young Opel had thought, it had been his mom who’d invented the cookie recipe, not his grandpa. But Opel eagerly pulled out the recipe, excited to make the cookie again and taste it on his tongue. On this were all the ingredients, but Opel was missing about eight of them, many of which he’d never heard of. But he still hurried out of his home, excited, and drove to the local supermarket.

Once he got there, he realized how hard it was going to be. He walked around nearly every aisle, reading almost every label, and eventually just asked an employee. She had no clue either what half of them were, though she did give three of them.

“Okay, 5 to go,” Opel said, and checked out. In the car he searched up the names, and browsed different stores. But the closest one to Opel was an hour drive! But Opel sighed as he started up his engine and began the long route.

When he approached, he realized he was in a shady neighborhood, with run-down buildings and people trading plastic bags. Opel’s fancy car attracted lots of attention, and people stared at him.

Maybe I should go somewhere else. He thought. No, I have to get this ingredient.

So Opel walked out of the car, and walked into this store. The bell jingled, and the one guy manning the store who had angry music pouring out of his headphones looked at Opel with a murderous glare.

“Uh, how much can I take for Kifrodamsifri?” Opel said, trying to pronounce it. 

The man looked at him, and then his car. 

“120 dollar for a bottle.”

Opel’s eyes widened. Well, it was a rare thing… He thought.

Opel sighed. “Okay.”

He regretfully pulled out a hundred and twenty dollars from his pocket and handed him. As the man’s eyes gleamed, he handed him the bottle, which was extremely small. Only when Opel left the store had he realized it only cost around fifteen dollars, not a hundred and twenty. 

He again drove around this area, entering random stores and paying crazy prices for the items. But Opel wanted the cookies, and was willing to do anything to have another taste of them in his mouth.

About eight hours and $1000 later, Opel had all the ingredients. Now he actually tried to look at the recipe, to realize there were thirty eight long steps. Opel sighed, and thought of asking his mother. Whenever she made it, the cookie would only take about fifteen minutes, but as a child he had never paid attention to when she cooked. Now he wished he had. 

Opel got to work getting all of the materials and trying to comprehend the difficult instructions. First off, Grandpa had used both customary and metric measures, so Opel spent a long time just converting the amounts. Secondly, Grandpa had put his measurements very exactly, even down to “11/12 of a teaspoon”. This meant that Opel spent more time staring at drops going into bowls. Finally, he didn’t give specific instructions, like how to know if you’d warmed it enough. 

Probably the hardest was all of the stirring. After just the first part of stirring, he felt like he had held the weight of the entire world on his hands. But finally, after a point where he’d probably dislocated a bone or two, he got a mushy, grey batter. Maybe it’ll turn better in the oven? 

So he again translated the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit, set his oven to preheated, and when it did, put his cookies in mushy and not very firm round shapes. He waited for the oven to finish, excited, but also worried. Maybe I should’ve asked Mom about it.

The oven dinged, and Opel eagerly pulled out the tray… to see a disappointing result. The cookies were more grey with red stains, and were very thin. Opel touched one to find it still like liquid, and that the cookies were in no way able to be held. Tears came to Opel’s eyes. Was he never going to taste it again? Even after ten hours, a thousand dollars, and all of his hard work?

Well, there is one way. A voice in my head said.

But I'm twenty eight years old now, I should be able to do it myself. Another voice responded. But I knew there wasn’t any other way I could get to eat the cookie.

I picked up my phone, and dialed the numbers I knew.

“Hey honey, did you get the recipe?”

“Yeah, I did. But I'm having a hard time making it. I got all the ingredients perfectly--”

“Oh gosh. I forgot to tell you! That recipe creates some sort of weird sludge Grandpa liked to eat, but I tweaked it to make it easier. I’ll send you the cookie recipe I liked to eat. Why didn’t you ask me?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t like asking for help.”

“That’s okay. Tell me if the recipe works. Bye!” 

His mom ended the call. A few days later, a new recipe came, this time with much easier ingredients and instructions. In about fifteen minutes, the cookie was ready, and sure enough, it looked just like what he had eaten when he was a kid. He bit into it, and found it amazing… except now since he was older, the recipe was a bit too sweet. 

Well. Opel thought. Time to start tweaking!