Dear Mormonson Cake,
I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but we are all on lockdown (entering week 10) and a lot of us are turning to baking to soothe our battered sense of purpose and so I am trying to bake you, Mormonson Cake. It hasn’t worked yet, and I’m not sure how much more butter and sugar I can go through only to throw the resulting chewy mess into the trash … but I am motivated.
Here’s why: my grandmother’s voice narrating the recipe as we measured out the butter, sugar, flour; the soft way “gram” is spoken in Norwegian, like a short expulsion of breath; the blue and white kitchen; the smell of coffee and bread crumbs on an old, clean towel; the cookie tins that smelled sweet even when empty.
I don’t know why you don’t work here. My mother said it was something to do with the baking powder or the flour. We could never get waffles right either.
Hope to see you soon,
-e.