Smell What I'm Cooking?

My new job is taking all my time.  Ridiculous!  Don't these people know I need to WRITE?

Please enjoy a post from the summer of 2013...


Willie is known for his baklava.  Painstakingly constructed, flaky and delectable, the appearance of his baklava is as anticipated as the appearance of his other homemade contributions to local parties. 

Chili.  Caramels. Taco dip.  Baklava.

Friendship with Willie is delicious.

I rise from my chair, put down the book I am reading and follow my nose.  The house reeks of lemons and honey, of home-made goodness and the next pants’ size up.

I wander toward the kitchen, stand in the doorway and watch as the baklava is being built, watch as tissue-thin sheets of phyllo dough are laid out, brushed with a buttery paintbrush. 

Willie is wearing headphones, the tinny overflow seeping out around his ears and into the silent room, oblivious to everything but the music and the dessert currently under construction. 

He looks up, grins at me. 

“HOW’S IT SMELL?  CAN YOU SMELL THE LEMONS?”

I laugh.  “Can I smell it? What do I look like, like I’m hard of smelling?”

He pulls the headphones off.  “I’m sorry,” he says.  “What?”

I shake my head: no apology necessary.  “The house smells of nothing BUT lemons,” I say.  “If it tastes even half as good as it smells, it’ll be a big hit.”

I make a half-hearted reach for some uncooked phyllo.  Willie bats my hand away. 

I like to make the effort.

And Willie puts his headphones back on, returns to baklava assembly, head already nodding in time to the music. 

“MAN,” he shouts, “I LOVE COOKING.”