Baked Alaska
by Janna Powers
“Mrs. Armstrong, I assure you all available measures will be taken to prevent your son’s loss in this case.”
Amy listened for a moment.
“Certainly. If you have any further questions or concerns, you know how to reach me. Have a wonderful rest of your morning.”
The push button phone clicked as Amy set it back in its holder. She always tried not to show her frustration with difficult clients, but Mrs. Armstrong was up there with the worst she’d dealt with. Amy supposed she was just being an overprotective mother to her spoiled son.
A glance at the paperwork stacked high on her desk indicated she had a busy workday ahead of her. Before attempting to read anything from the stack, she gracefully rose from her chair and went to the nearby coffee station. Pouring herself a fresh cup, she thought about how far she’d come since graduating from Yale Law School five years ago. Thanks to one of her professors, she landed a job at a prestigious law firm shortly after graduation. Never mind that it was on the East Coast of the United States instead of her native Alaska. Life was lived at a much faster pace here. She could flow with that now, though it overwhelmed her during her freshman year of college.
All her life, becoming an attorney had been Amy’s dream. She conducted mock court cases as a child with her stuffed animals and, later, talked her friends into playing court. Her local librarian saw a lot of her, looking for legal books in which to immerse herself. Amy’s mother encouraged her to pursue what she loved, even if it meant she wouldn’t be working side-by-side with her mother in the family bakery, Baked Alaska. As an only child, Amy knew she would inherit the business someday. Before Amy moved to the Lower 48, she and her mother had made an agreement. Caroline would take Amy under her wing and teach her all she knew about baking a year or two ahead of her retirement so that Amy would be comfortable running the establishment. Amy was happy with the arrangement because her mother wouldn’t retire for at least another 20 years. Baking was Caroline’s passion, one that she wanted to live out for as long as her body would permit. That gave Amy plenty of time to enjoy her own career choice and carve out her own path.
You’d better quit daydreaming before Ms. Augusta finds you loafing under the pretense of grabbing some quick energy, Amy told herself. She clicked-clacked back to her desk and barely finished skimming the information about a potential client before the phone rang.
“Attorney Amy Morrison at your service. How may I help you?” she inquired in a smoothly professional tone.
“My, don’t you sound efficient,” weakly chuckled a warm voice.
“Mary!” gasped Amy, a little too loudly. Several heads swiveled in her direction. She flushed slightly and nodded slightly to show them she was fine. Her mother’s close friend had never called Amy’s work number. She usually talked with Amy on Sunday afternoons. “Is anything the matter?”
“Well,” said Mary uneasily, “as a matter of fact, yes. Can you take the rest of the day off? Perhaps the entire week?”
The question surprised Amy. “I really don’t think I can, Mary. I have a huge pile of cases to go through and I’m supposed to prepare for an upcoming court session. Why do you ask?”
“My dear, I don’t think there’s an easy way to put this. It was quite unexpected.” Mary sighed and hesitated. “Your mother passed on this morning. Her heart failed her.”
Amy nearly dropped the phone.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And so it happened that Amy did take the rest of the week off. She broke the news to Ms. Augusta, and the two women cried together, neither caring that the rest of the office was ogling at them. With very kind and understanding words, Ms. Augusta told Amy that she was not expected to return to work for at least the next few weeks. The two women parted tearfully, and Amy drove as fast as she could to her small house. Packing only necessary items, she hightailed it to the airport to catch the quickest flight home.
Nine hours later, she walked into the Anchorage airport feeling rumpled in spirit and messy in appearance. Mary walked up to Amy and wrapped her in a close hug.
“Oh, Mary. At least I still have you!” Amy murmured into the older woman’s shoulder. “Why did Mother have to go now? Why? I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” The tears started again without warning.
“We shouldn’t question the Almighty’s reasons, my child. It was simply her time,” Mary soothed a distraught Amy. “Let’s get you home and settled. The celebration of life service isn’t until the day after tomorrow. I’ve taken care of most of the details.”
Amy gave her a hug. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done.”
Mary led her to the Jeep and handed her a still-warm cinnamon roll with a twinkle in her eye. “Not quite what Caroline could make, but I seem to remember that cinnamon rolls have a healing effect on you. That’s from a fresh batch I took out a bit ago.”
Amy gratefully accepted the tasty treat, nibbling on it as they drove to the small town of Pine Grove. “So, tell me what she was doing right before – well, you know.”
“She was in a rare mood. I’d seen her in joyous states, but that morning, she was radiant as she slaved over loaves of French bread. When I came in, she was whistling and couldn’t stop smiling. It was like she knew she wouldn’t have any more baking opportunities after that day and was determined to have one last, fun go of it. We had just taken a tray of scones out of the oven when she gripped the counter to balance herself. She assured me she was fine. I half-heartedly believed her. You know your mother, never willing to stop in the middle of a baking spree. Half an hour later, I found her lying still on the floor after I got back from the post office.”
“That must have been awful for you,” said Amy with a grimace, “to find your own friend helpless and lifeless. I would be haunted with such a memory.”
“I doubt I’ll forget the feeling anytime soon,” shuddered Mary.
The remainder of the ride home was a quiet one for Amy. Mary seemed busy with her own thoughts and occupied with the road. Amy contemplated Mary’s previous words. She had called her “my child,” which she had often used on Amy, growing up. Mary has been like a second mother to me, she mused. I guess now she really is the only motherly figure I’ve got. Without warning, a memory washed over her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Amy toddled into the living room dragging a teddy bear. “Mommy, can we go skatin’ tomorra?”
Caroline looked up from her knitting with a compassionate smile. “I wish we could, honey, but I have a huge order of croissants to fill for a bakery in Anchorage.”
“Then could Daddy take me?” Amy asked hopefully.
“He has to help me in the kitchen.”
Paul strode into the room, coffee cup in hand. “I do?” he questioned playfully.
“Paul, you know I can’t manage –”
“Why don’t you and I tackle those croissants, Caroline? The child’s been cooped up for too many days straight,” Mary interjected from her position in the armchair.
“Oh, would you, Mary? That would be splendid,” said Caroline, pleased. She turned to her husband with a smile. “I guess you do get the day off tomorrow. If you’ll take Amy –”
She was interrupted with a shriek of joy from Amy, who bounded over to her father and hugged his legs tightly. “Tank you, tank you, Daddy!”
He picked her up and gently tossed her in the air, making her giggle. “You’re most welcome, my sweet. Let’s go get our gear in order for tomorrow, okay?”
With that, she happily placed her hand in his, and they walked to the storage closet. Paul let Amy have free rein in choosing her hat, mittens, and warm coat.
The next morning, Amy woke up in a state of high excitement. She rushed through breakfast and saw that Paul did as well. By the time they arrived at the pond, which had been mysteriously cleared off overnight, Amy was sure the day couldn’t get any better. Father and daughter merrily skated the morning away, racing each other and seeing who could glide on one foot the longest. When Paul said it was time to go, Amy’s memory became a bit fuzzy from that point on. She vaguely remembered the shattering of glass and swerving unnaturally on the road. Miraculously, she had escaped the accident without a scratch in her car seat, but Paul wasn’t so fortunate. A man in a white coat had told her mother he was killed on impact from the dense snow and sharp ice. Amy never saw her father again.
That evening, Mary took her in her arms. In a quiet, soothing voice, she said, “My child, your father is with all the angels. He loved you so very much, and you’ll be able to see him again someday.”
Amy had solemnly nodded. The fact that her father was truly dead didn’t sink in until a few days later. She learned to accept it after a while and poured all her little heart’s love into her mother and Mary.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The day after the celebration of life service was a hard one for Amy. She was faced with a major decision that she’d been putting off for as long as she reasonably could. What would happen to Baked Alaska? She hadn’t received the planned years of training, and for being a baker’s daughter, she could barely fix dinner for herself. Actually, cooking a homemade dinner was rare for Amy. Dining out had been a much more convenient option. How on earth would she manage? Thankfully, she had a little less than three weeks to decide what to do before she’d be expected back at work. Mary had kindly offered to take over the bakery temporarily. She suggested that in the meantime, Amy could start to learn her late mother’s baking secrets, to which Mary had been privy.
Mary breezed into the bakery. “There’s a nip in the wind today. If I’m not mistaken, fall is on its way.”
Amy smiled. She loved this time of year. Her mother had as well. The recollection was bittersweet. “Doesn’t that mean we’ll be starting on the specials for fall?”
“We certainly will! Since it’s your first day as my student, why don’t we start with something simple, like fall-themed sugar cookies?” Mary figured Amy, though lacking in experience, would have a hard time messing up those.
“Ooh, yum! Let’s do it.” Earlier, Amy determined that she would have a positive attitude about learning to bake professionally. She reasoned she could always tell Mary she wasn’t interested for the long-term. Then she’d need to decide what to do with the bakery. But she could cross that bridge later.
“First, we need to cream two pounds of butter with four and a half cups of sugar,” Mary instructed. “And by cream, I mean mix with the stand mixer on medium-low until the two ingredients are combined. They should be nice and fluffy by the time you turn off the mixer.”
Amy nodded. Sounded simple enough. She dumped two blocks of butter into the bowl and headed for the dry ingredient pantry. Searching the shelves for sugar, she grabbed the most likely-looking sugar container. It boasted no label and was surrounded by other unlabeled bags of white granular stuff. Surely this is the sugar. Who would keep salt in such a huge quantity? She had forgotten how her mother stored the salt stash and didn’t want to bother Mary, who was gathering other ingredients, about something so trivial. Putting her concern in the back of her mind, Amy lugged the large canister over to the countertop. A sizable glass cup stood on the counter with faded measurement lines. She couldn’t make out what exactly the listed measurements said. Shrugging, she poured the sugar into it four and a half times, dumping them into the bowl after each. At least the mixing speed levels on the stand mixer were legible. Turning it on to medium-low, Amy watched the sugar and butter until the mixture was fluffy, like Mary had said.
Mary returned from the back storage room and peered into the mixer. “That looks great! Nicely done. Now, we need to add the eggs. Do you know how to crack them?”
Fortunately, Amy did. Scrambled eggs was one of her favorite breakfasts, so she made sure several years ago that she knew how to crack an egg. After adding the eggs and vanilla extract, Mary told her they needed to whisk the dry ingredients together and then add them slowly to the wet ones. “Flour needs to be ‘poofed,’ as your mother would’ve said, prior to measuring it out. Just take the scoop and pretend you’re shoveling snow. Only don’t shovel too hard, or it’ll get all over the counter and we’ll waste good flour.”
“Got it.” Amy practiced measuring the flour carefully into the metal measuring cup, lightly smoothing off the excess.
“Most baking recipes use some of or all these dry ingredients – baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In our case, however, we just need baking powder and salt,” explained Mary. “These measuring spoons are what we’ll use to measure them. We need two tablespoons and three-fourths teaspoon of baking powder. The teaspoon is the second-largest spoon on here.” Mary held up the various spoons as she talked. “The largest one is the tablespoon, and the smallest two are the half teaspoon and fourth teaspoon.”
“Which do you usually use the most often?” asked Amy.
“Depends on the quantity of what we make. For us and our commercial purposes, tablespoons unless the teaspoons don’t easily convert because they’re the biggest. For a family of four, teaspoons because they don’t require as much per recipe.”
“Wow, Mary. I knew you sometimes helped Mother out, but you seem to know nearly as much as she did,” Amy teased.
“I had to be able to keep up with her one way or another,” winked Mary.
They finished combining the dry ingredients and added them to the mixer. When a ball of dough formed, Mary told Amy to stop the mixer. “We should roll it out between two sheets of parchment on a baking sheet and stick it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Trust me, it’ll make cutting them out that much more effortless.”
Thirty minutes later, the dough came out of the freezer. Mary removed the top parchment sheet and showed Amy how to fit as many cutouts as possible on one sheet of dough. Amy found herself enjoying this part. She made pumpkins, horns of plenty, apples, haybales, scarecrows, leaves, turkeys, and football helmets.
“Just wait until we start decorating these.” Mary’s eyes sparkled merrily. “There’s nothing better than cookie decorating in the baking world.”
Amy looked uncertain. “Mary, I’m not really all that artistic. I’m an attorney and not an artist for a reason.”
Mary just smiled. “Cookie decorating is a unique form of art. Requires different technique than regular art. Who knows? You might have a knack for it.”
Shrugging, Amy went back to cutting cookies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mary opened the large oven door. “Okay, I think these are done. Shall we taste test them?”
“Sure,” grinned Amy. Frankly, she was surprised the whole affair hadn’t been a disaster. Mary was overseeing it, of course, but Amy had done quite a bit of the work. Maybe she wasn’t an utter baking failure after all!
While Mary went to the upper living quarters for glasses of milk, Amy selected a turkey for herself and a pumpkin for Mary. She could definitely get used to the sampling part of being a baker.
Mary came downstairs shortly after she left bearing two tall glasses of milk and wearing a proud, motherly smile. “Let’s try them.”
Biting into their cookies at the same time, they stopped chewing almost immediately and reached for their milk simultaneously.
“Oh,” groaned Amy, “these are awful! And we used all those ingredients too. What did I do wrong? I think I followed your directions.”
“My dear, you have put salt in, instead of sugar.” A faint smile tugged on Mary’s lips.
Amy felt quite bad. “I’m so sorry. I knew everything was going too well to be real,” she sighed.
Mary reached over and raised Amy’s lowered chin with her finger. “Amy, this sort of error can happen to anyone. Even your mother! Why, one of her first batches we shared together that she’d baked all by herself as a little girl were too salty to eat. It’s all right.”
Shaking her head, Amy remembered her little adventure earlier with the unlabeled bags. “I was debating which bags had salt and which had sugar. I probably should’ve asked you about it, petty as I thought it was,” she said sheepishly.
Mary squeezed Amy’s hand to show her she understood. “Next time, don’t be afraid to ask questions. That is what I’m here for as we go through this learning curve.”
Amy looked relieved. “Thank you, Mary, for being so patient with me.”
“Of course,” said Mary kindly.
Rising from the table, Amy said, “This first experience has given me a lot to think about. I’ve discovered two things: one, I need way more practice if I want to bake professionally. Two, it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”
Mary merely smiled, satisfied with their first lesson.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today was the last day of Amy’s three-week leave from her job. Mary had patiently taught Amy the basics of baking, and her enthusiasm was contagious. Amy never dreamed she would be deliberating so seriously between taking over Baked Alaska or returning to the life she’d built for herself as an attorney. The possibility of hiring someone to help Mary run the place occurred to her, but it didn’t seem right. Baked Alaska was a family business, and it troubled Amy to think of Mary and a stranger working together. Besides, Amy couldn’t afford to pay both of them the amount deserved in taking on such a big responsibility and still pay her bills. Oh, she would advance in the attorney world – she hoped – as the years went on and thus earn a larger salary, but it might be too late by then.
Amy had taken her debate to Mary on multiple occasions. Mary simply told her she’d be happy with whatever Amy decided; she was mostly concerned for Amy’s happiness. This, of course, did not waver Amy much in either direction.
Finally, she decided to call Ms. Augusta to obtain her opinion. Next to Mary, Ms. Augusta was the other closest motherly figure in Amy’s life. She also happened to be her boss. Amy took a deep breath and dialed the long-distance number.
“Cheryl Augusta, head attorney of Pressius Law Firm. How may I help you?”
“Ms. Augusta, it’s me, Amy. I wondered if you had a few minutes to talk? I need to make a decision and I’m having a difficult time with it.”
“Absolutely! You caught me at the perfect time; I was just finishing up for the day. What’s going on?”
Amy gave a shaky laugh. “Well, I don’t know if you’ll believe this, but I’m seriously considering taking over my mother’s bakery full-time. These past few weeks, I had a chance to get my feet wet and decide if I liked it, and even though I’ve been going to bed really tired, baking invigorates me. And I thought that defending a client in court did that. Not baking! I can’t decide for the life of me which to pursue – my position as an attorney or a new career as a baker.”
“Have you considered both?”
Amy was startled. She was not prepared for such a question. “No-o, I hadn’t even thought of that. How would I manage both? Baking is time-demanding, and so is being an attorney.”
“You’re from a small town, Amy. Do I guess correctly if I say you have no established attorney practice there?”
“Yes, that’s right. The closest access anybody here has to legal counsel is Anchorage.”
“Then perhaps you could be the first one. Small skirmishes are bound to come up, and you could certainly handle those as well as baking.”
“Mary did say she was more than willing to come alongside me as co-owner…”
“Sounds like you have it figured out,” said Ms. Augusta, sounding satisfied. “I’ll miss you more than I care to say down here. You brought a casual wind with you when you first came. We certainly needed that and appreciate all you’ve done in the Lower 48. Listen to me, you’ve even introduced new vocabulary to us!”
Boss and employee shared a laugh before working out resignation details and saying goodbye. Amy hung up happily, certain that she made the right choice.
“Mary! Mary! I’m staying!” she cried, barreling down the stairs from her room into the kitchen with girlish glee and running into the motherly arms that welcomed her.
“Oh, my child, I am so glad,” said Mary warmly.
To celebrate a new chapter in both women’s lives, Mary made her signature baked Alaska for dessert that night. As they finished the last bite, Mary whispered with a mischievous look, “Can you keep a secret?”
“You bet.”
Mary looked both ways in mock caution. “Your mother is the only other person who knew this, mostly because it was her decision. She named this place the way she did because of my baked Alaska recipe. According to her, it was unbeatable, and she wanted her baked goods to reflect that little sentiment.”
Amy collapsed into a fit of giggles, and Mary smiled, satisfied that Amy had come home at last.