byI’m not the one who should get the family recipe. It has passed from mother to daughter for more generations than anybody can count, and I’m a son, not a daughter. But my three sisters didn’t have the vision to read the writing on the family recipe page, and I did, so Mom was stuck with training me to make the solstice cakes.
I was seventeen, and looking forward to running away to the Western Culinary Institute next year, partly to get away from Dad, who said these things that sounded like compliments but weren’t, like, “Nice quiche, Zach. Very flavorful. Who knew you had it in you?”
I’d been interested in cooking since I was nine, so he should know I had it in me by now.
He said things like that about my songwriting, too. “What a cute little jingle. Maybe you could write songs for ad
