Surprised by a Lovely Snack.

Last night my 8 year old niece spent the night. Now, this child has the most optimistic and precious heart and a very sweet disposition. So as we were leaving to go to my house and she told me she was going to make me a "special snack," the following ensued.

"I make it all the time, and everyone always loves it!" she said happily.

"How do you know that I have all the ingredients you'll need to make it?" I asked.

"Oh, its easy!" she replied. "Everyone has them. I just need flour, sugar, and baking powder. Do you have those Aunt Erin?"

"Yes I do," I said.

"Oh, and do you have an oven?" she added.

"Yes, I do have an oven," I replied.

"And chocolate chips?" Followed hopefully.

"Well, no. I don't have any chocolate chips."

"Okay, well that's fine. Then that's all I'll need. Flour, sugar, baking power- oh, and ham."

"Ham?!!" I said with some alarm.

"Yep, ham. You've got some ham?"

"Um, no. Actually I don't. Wait, I do have some lunch meat ham. Will that work?" I said hesitatingly, still somewhat uncertain of what this random pork item was doing being tossed into what had up to this point seemed like a harmless cookie recipe.

"Yes, yes. that should work just fine. Oh, and actually, I don't need the oven."

I was mystified at this point. "Jensen, let me get this straight. You are going to make something out of flour, sugar, baking powder, and ham- without an oven?"

She smiled up at me. "Yes! We do it all the time."

Okay, I thought. Whatever. I am a really easy going aunt. Let's just see what she makes.

After getting to my apartment and swimming for awhile, while I was in the shower rinsing off she went to work in the kitchen. Little did I know that a few new items were getting tossed into the mix- some pears that she had harvested the night before from the tree in my mom's backyard as well as a carefully hoarded after-dinner mint from Pei Wei's Asian Diner procured at a previous unspecified mealtime.

I came out of the shower to find a gigantic mess in the kitchen, and two finished, um... "snacks." Thankfully, it turned out that there was actually no ham involved. Like many things small children say I have no idea where she got that, but I know it made sense to her at the time. Here was her masterpiece.



Yes, that is an unbaked drizzle of flour, sugar, water, and baking powder on a plate frosted with granulated sugar and slices of pear.



Its a little blurry, but perhaps you can discern that mine is garnished with the aforementioned, strategically positioned after-dinner mint. Only slightly less obvious might be the whole lot of lovin' she added that made it all worthwhile.