Famous (Slice 22)

I've lived on my own, as an adult, independent from my mother (inasmuch as daughters ever are) for 6 years now, but some things still catch me off guard. One is that I am "famous" among my friends and community here for being a good baker and cook. Certain things--cinnamon rolls, snickerdoodles--are known as "mine" (use it in a sentence: "Those snickerdoodles from Hannaford were terrible--since I've had Chandra's, I can't eat any other kind.").

When I was growing up, even once I was a teenager and could, generally speaking, cook and bake without burning the house down or measuring out three cups of eggs, I still wasn't known for it, because my mother was the famous one. So it was more of a, "Oh, Chandra, you bake, too--just like your mom! How sweet!"

It's strange to take ownership of things that you know aren't really yours, but for all intents and purposes are. If I tell people here that these recipes are really my mother's, that I learned baking from the middle of a kitchen floor, gazing upward toward flour-covered counters and a whirring KitchenAid, they nod and say that's nice, but the snickerdoodles remain mine.

This is, perhaps, a silly little example, but it's a tile in the larger mosaic of us growing into real people, becoming our parents (despite our best efforts), and becoming an ever-changing identity. And it's strange how little things like cinnamon rolls are pieces of lasting identity, even when much else changes. I could lose 100 pounds, be brought into the witness protection program, become a lawyer, move to Thailand, learn to like math--but Christmas morning, you would still find me getting up early to roll out risen dough. And maybe by then, as I place cross-sectioned spirals in greased pans, I'll finally think of them as mine.