Description
Licking the Bowl:
by Paul Thorsteinson (PT57)
A time honored tradition that we all remember from when we were kids. Creeping into the kitchen as mom was cooking, looking around, but not wanting to get shoo’ed out for being the dreaded “in the way”. A break in the hub of activity as the mostly finished product goes into the final stage of preparation. Usually the oven or the refrigerator .
“Do you want to lick the bowl?”
Within the bowl is a questionable substance of indistinguishable nature. It coats the sides of the mixing bowl but it is no mystery that it is a source of delicious opulence. My small hands would reach out greedily and clutch the oversized mixing bowl.
With the bowl, there is always a brief struggle to gain purchase and leverage in synchrosity. But once the balance is achieved like a Himalayan monk in expert divination of a lifetime of discernment, my little hands dive along the edge of the bowl scooping a more than generous amount of sweet nectar onto my dexterous digits.
For a moment, I would always hold it aloft, to study my prey. The ever sought after elusive unbaked pie or cake batter. Then lightning fast, like an Indian cobra, I strike. It’s nummins time.
An explosion of exotic sweets washes over my seasoned palate. Unique to the finished product, bowl batter is nothing like a baked cake. Cake batter could almost be it’s own flavor or treat. For a moment, all young entrepreneurs picture a world where they line the grocery store isles with prepackaged uncut, and unrefined cake batter to be eaten by the handful by eager consumers. But the delusion of dollar signs quickly melts away to the actuality of delectable treats right within the grasp of this young confectionery’s finger tips.
I had almost forgotten this favored past time of my youth, until I was called out to the dayroom to help with a cheesecake. To which I answered:
“Sure, why not?”
Recently, the prison inmate store started selling no-bake cheesecakes. A win for us in the penitentiary who love good food and sweet treats. But there is a thin line within the cheesecake world. It’s really good if cooked right and downright awful if cooked wrong.
During a cooking session from the unit’s cheesecake guru, I studied his time honored techniques. He had diced up bananas and kiwis in separate containers. Sugar, milk, and graham cracker crust in mid-chill. I was just in time to witness the combination of ingredients.
I tried to memorize each step, hoping to duplicate the process for my own cheesecake adventures. When the ceremony switched to pouring, I anxiously watched while the pie came together and then something happened that I hadn’t heard since I was a child.
“Do you wanna lick the bowl?”
I’m sure the offer was originally in jest. But a wave of nostalgia washed over me, as my hands moved out on their own accord in the universal gesture of “Past that shit over”
Coveting the moment, I scraped the banana cheesecake along the side, loading up my finger. As I ate it off of nature’s greatest utensils, memories of Mom’s kitchen flooded back and I was again just a little guy swinging my feet from an oversized stool, clutching a bowl of delectable treasure.
