BY MARINA WOLF
Brittle Lives
Seeking transformation in a pan of burnt sugar.
W
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e cook from cans now in my
house. We eat soups and chili,
fruit cocktail, tuna fish. Our recy-
cling bin is filling up with the jagged edges
of our indifference. It’s survivalist eating,
and what is surviving is us.
My live-in lover and I have not cooked
together in months. This didn’t use to both-
er me, back when our excuse was star-
crossed schedules. And anyway, we needed
a break from the intense list compiling,
menu making and grocery shopping that
marked a more, shall we say, creative era in
our eating. But lately I, who used to delight
in feeding her, have not been able to cook
for her without feeling that I am somehow
doing penance. Guilt is a highly effective
appetite suppressant, and when you’re not
that hungry, convenience food is the most
efficient fuel.
So it surprised me the other morning to
find us both in the kitchen. I felt suddenly
awkward, as though we were two strangers
in an elevator going all the way to the top of
the building. But we both had a rare day off,
and we came to an agreement: we would
make candy, a homemade version of
Almond Roca, to be precise, with a brittle
layer of toffee slathered with milk chocolate
and coated with almond bits. She had a
recipe from one of her work parties and I had
a confectionery book culled from the teeter-
ing piles. We had our issues, but we also had
our mission, and somehow, together, we had
to make this work.
Turns out that candy is a slightly scary
substance to work with, deceptively simple
in its composition, but requiring a great deal
of attention, being essentially sugar on a
controlled burn. The cookbook says you can
interrupt melted sugar at any of five temper-
atures and get five different sorts of candy.
We were going for extreme confectionery.
We were playing hard-ball, literally, going
for the far side of the candy thermometer
where it looks as though the mercury might
shoot out the end in a minute.
As soon as the sugar melted and began to
thicken and bubble, I was entranced by the
obvious alchemy of it (which is a good
thing, because at temperatures like that, you
can’t look away for a second). I stirred
incessantly at the pale glutinous mass that
formed in our little pan. My lover roamed
around our small kitchen, putting away
dishes, looking over my shoulder. I kept
peering into the pan, my mind whirling with
doubts. What if I burn myself? How do I
know when it’s enough? This feels as
though it’s taking forever. Is this how it’s
supposed to be?
I was tired of searching for answers in a
sugary swirl that was as inscrutable as a bro-
ken Magic 8-ball. Will you stir? She took
the wooden spoon and cautiously began stir-
ring. I watched at first, not sure that she
wouldn’t spill on herself, but then I relaxed
a little. I drank down a glass of orange juice
(it was morning, did I mention this?), and
then gently took the spoon back from her
and continued to stir, scraping carefully
along the bottom and the sides. The changes
happened almost imperceptibly at first, with
the pale sludge getting more unctuous, roil-
ing with thick creamy strands that showed
golden along the edges. The color deepened,
and I stirred, hypnotized. It was starting to
look promising.
Then suddenly the magic broke. The
candy turned chaotic and ugly, all curds of
mahogany bubbling fiercely in nothing
more mystical than burning butter. The stuff
had de-emulsified, broken apart. I stirred
harder, but there was no going back. Silently
I showed the pan to her, and shrugged my
shoulders. Maybe this was a lost cause.
Almost hopelessly, I dropped a bit into a
glass of cold water, and fished out the result.
The droplet crunched between my teeth,
sweet and buttery rich with promise.
Holding my breath, I carefully emptied the
liquid onto the waxed paper pan, and
watched the substance spread in muddy cur-
rents across the pan, leaving hissing, curled-
up edges in its wake. My lover, too, eyed the
pan dubiously, then we went back to our
desultory conversation while we waited for
the stuff to cool. The minutes passed, and
the surface of the candy dulled. I tapped ten-
tatively on the greasy surface. It had solidi-
fied according to plan. But still, it could not
be good enough, I thought, poking at the
edges. One shard came free, and I nervous-
ly put it in my mouth after offering my lover
a piece.
We both smiled at once. Yes. The toffee
melted on my tongue, its hard edges crum-
bling away to a luscious chewy mouthful.
Still grinning, I lifted the waxed paper from
the pan. The toffee came away in one stiff
sheet. If we dropped it, it would break into a
hundred little pieces.
ew
Marina Wolf lives in San Francisco and teaches dance
classes for “people of all sizes” (www.bigmoves.org).