The challenge? Write a story in exactly 6 sentences based on Denise’s one word prompt: EVEN. Visit, comment, and write & post your own on SIX SENTENCE STORIES. The Café is open. Come as you are!

You start with a precise recipe: this many deciliters of starter, so many grams of flour (careful not to overpack, and smooth the top evenly with a blunt butter knife), a measure of vegetable oil, a half teaspoon of yeast dissolved in ¼ cup (plus two extra teaspoons) of warm water, and half that amount of salt, ¼ cup of honey, a single brown-shelled egg (room temperature and beaten), one quarter-cup of golden raisins (soaked for an hour and drained, to be added last) and a generous rounded teaspoon of cardamom.

Except that you halve the recipe because your mother has passed and she can no longer help you enjoy the bounty.                           

You continue on, because recipes are part of what drives life and preserves the folklore of the family as you would have it remembered; change is the only constant and must be considered within the now, so feeling your way along becomes critical to culinary success.

Rules become guidelines and you dust your hands with flour after that first introductory stir with the fork, and feel the tension in the dough, the necessary stickiness that comes with adding half an egg, the drizzle of oil, and the honey that is never completely scraped from the cup.

You wait all day (because cold house and no sunshine) for the dough to rise, to be punched playfully down, to rise again and again, and you reflect on the message therein.

And if you’ve been paying attention and been patient enough, and used the other half of the egg for an egg wash, you’ll get an ornate braid that tears off easily, to complement a simple steaming cup of black coffee, the next snow-dusted morning.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)