The Knicknackery Issue Two - 2014 | Page 29

L.M. Webster

missed Miles’ call because I was focused on beating eggs with the electric beater, and my arm was buzzing so much that my phone’s vibration must have blended right in. Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night I try a new dessert recipe: pineapple soufflé, Irish whiskey cake, Spanish fudge, and one time even cinnamon ice cream alongside a batch of pumpkin cookies. The pineapple soufflé is pretty easy and the ingredients were in my cabinets at midnight when I started it. I got the beater from Miles. I assumed he never used it, so I took it after he pushed me out of bed one night.

In the fourth century B.C. some Greek noted that Egyptians were incubating large numbers of eggs, like ten thousand eggs at a time. People have been eating eggs forever, and it wasn’t until the nineteenth century A.D. that some American invented the hand-held egg beater. They have standing electric mixers now so you don’t even have to hold the thing while beating, but at least the electric hand-held isn’t a total cop out. And the one I swept from Miles’ place is the Sunbeam Mixmaster, which is the Mixer America Grew Up With.

I put everything else in with the eggs: sugar, flour, butter, lemon and pineapple chunks. They call it a soufflé because the eggs make it light and puffy. I put the thing in a casserole dish and into the oven. Then, after checking for missed calls, I called Miles back. I don’t really like talking on the phone, but sometimes it’s just too much to text. I turned on the oven light and crouched down to watch as I listened to his phone ring. I imagined him watching some TV show on his computer and hearing his phone, but not picking up until it rang a sufficient number of times.

“Yo,” he said to me. My grandmother used to tell me to smile when I talk on the phone, because even though the other

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Sunbeam Mixmaster