My eleven year old brother and I bake. Not well, but we do. We set our ambitions high, tying on our mother’s spare aprons and rummaging through the fridge for rolls of nestle toll house cookies, frozen pie shells, and cans of pumpkin purée. We fumble through the recipe on the back on the Betty Crocker Box- that is, if I don’t accidentally toss it out before we begin. We guesstimate baking times, and eye ball cups of flour.
Our motto: the more sugar, the better.
My brother wriggles excitedly, begging to crack the eggs. Half of them end up on the floor. Once we doubled the lime in a key lime pie, and added three eggs too many, then left it in the oven for a good twenty minutes extra. This is our normal baking method- in the oven, out of the oven, prod gingerly, and back in the oven. Wait five minutes, then repeat. We pass the time by pressing our noses to the oven door, and licking clean the any batter coated bowls and spoons. If my mom is lucky I might wash them. If I am lucky, my brother might wash them.
It’s not of affinity for baking that draws us together. Not even our affinity for each other. Peter and I argue. We make plans that don’t happen. Like the times I told him I would take him to breakfast before school. Real early, just you and me bud. I slept in. He cried.
I go long stretches without calling him from college. He spends large stretches in front of the TV screen. But I don’t want that to be the only place he can go. So for lack of better ideas, I beckon him into the kitchen. A realm that belongs to neither of us, but entices of both of us. I tempt him with recipes I’ve Googled, and delicious words like boysenberry coquen. Peter and I have yet to see, let alone taste, a boysenberry. But if it comes in a box at the grocery store, or in a syrup filled can- we’ll find it.
We might never actually eat all of whatever concoction we bake. But that’s alright. I believe it’s okay to make desserts from the box. But not buying them, never buying them. Because it’s the mixing, the baking, the flour dusted, dropped spoons, spilled milk process that means for at least for those forty minutes, my brother is all mine. It’s just us, the batter, and one ridiculously messy kitchen. And, of all the recipes we’ve ever attempted, I can promise, nothing is sweeter.
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I chose to re-record my "This I Believe" speech for several reasons. First, it was our earliest speech in the semester, and not surprisingly it was the one with which I had the worst live delivery. It felt only fair to the words- all the work and time I put into crafting these sentences- that I took a second chance with them. Note: the recording of the speech was satisfactory (if not poorly edited) but I was really disappointed with my first live delivery. It showed, out of all of my speeches, the greatest need for important. I remember the original comments on the delivery: fidgeting, slighting shaking, raspy breathes. I believe my revision is more confident, and enhances the words of the essay rather than distracts from them
Secondly, I submitted this essay to the actual NPR "This I Believe" essay contest. If I win and get a chance to read it on air, I want to have practiced and perfected my delivery. I feel this is a good method to check and reflect upon my delivery- watching and listening to it. I am confident with the final product here; I will be confident with what I can do given a bigger venue with this essay, This revisions acts as a checkpoint in the progress of this speech,
