summer pie

the first step to making a perfect summer pie is picking the fruit.  you can buy the sugar if you're in the north.  but you must visit a farm for your best ingredients. eggs. milk.

the pastry takes time. the pastry is likely to fail you at first. the pastry takes practice, but you have it in you.  fold the butter.  flour the pin. roll. cut.

"no soggy bottoms," from mary berry, with love.

apply love and attention to detail, but don't use a ruler. you don't want it looking so good, no one wants to cut the first peice.

(drabble 28 out of 31)

she keeps winning him

he woke up to the sound of morning commuters.  horns honking, pedestrians shouting.  a hammer or a wood pecker? he was shivering from a cold breeze. the window in the living room was wide open over the fire escape.  his hair was sticky from sweat.  his teeth felt fuzzy from all the cookies and cakes and coffee from the night before.  his knees were stiff from sleeping on a sofa. 

he felt old, dirty, cold and hungry. 

he wanted to go back in time, to before he lost everything.

but then the scent of café and toast won him over. 

(drabble 27 out of 31)

the bake off

his shirt was hung to dry, and she insisted it would need to be ironed.  so he had no choice.  he had to stay.  but for this he was grateful.  he had nowhere else to go.

so he stayed.

and they spent the time it took for a fine linen shirt to dry in a small humid apartment by competing in the kitchen.  specifically, they held a two-person bake off.  he made chocolate chip cookies with ground espresso and a dash of cayenne.  she made zesty lemon madeleines. 

they agreed to a tie.  another competition would need to take place.

(drabble 26 out of 31)

hand washed

he watched carefully as the young woman thrust his fine linen shirt in and out of the sink basin.  she'd filled the sink with hot water and woolite to wash it. 

he watched her, gave her his full attention, ignoring the café between his hands.  the fine china warming to nearly unbearably hot in his hands. 

her knuckles grew redder with each dunk into the hot, soapy water. 

he held back the threat of tears and the lump in his throat. 

she rang the water out of the shirt and hung it up over a makeshift line in the lounge.



(drabble 25 out of 31)

his last shirt

he watched a young woman remove his three hundred euro shirt from the grungy laundromat machine.  it was his last shirt.  he was paralyzed from saving it.  he watches as she unfurled it. the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown before she looked around, holding the shirt out in front of her.  paralyzed and embarrassed.  everything was falling apart. his marriage, his house, his job, and now his simple attempt to do laundry.  he knew he'd ruined his last good shirt. but he didn't know that the woman who held it was about to change his luck.

(drabble 24 out of 31)