How To Get Yourself Removed From My Holiday Baking Recipient List
Each year at the holidays I make stollen, the German Christmas bread. There's a whole back story to how the yearly making of the stollen came about, my childhood memories of stollen, why I rarely eat it myself, and all that. But I'll save that for another time. This story starts with my version of the bread being pretty decent and a family in town that has been receiving it for almost 10 years - yeah, even before we moved to this town, they were getting it. My husband and the husband in that family have known each other almost 30 years.
Last year, the wife in this family - let's call her SS - called in early December and said she wanted to learn how to make stollen herself. Could she come over on one of my baking days to learn? Flattered, I said yes, and we set a time a couple Saturdays away.
The Wednesday before our baking date, SS emails me and says she read something about some versions of stollen having a filling of marzipan, confirmed this with her German mother-in-law, and she really likes marzipan, and could she bring some over and we could try it?
I was a little surprised. Yes, I know some versions have marzipan - regular almond paste, actually - but I prefer the version without. I hemmed and hawed and finally said, sure. I figured that would be "their" loaf then. I considered it amusing at the time, and tried to be open.
The next day, SS emails me that she is unable to find marzipan, and oh well. I do not tell her almond paste can be substituted.
On the Saturday at the appointed time, SS shows up - with almond paste.
We get to baking. While I'm trying to talk to her about some details of the bread ingredients and process, it becomes clear that she's not really interested in that. She opens a bottle of wine, talks about other things and watches me. Then she lets it slip that she just wants to be sure that our family's yearly gift to her family is how she prefers it: with almond paste in the middle. Apparently she didn't "just" hear about marzipan being in stollen. She's loose enough with her lips to reveal that she's been plotting this for some time.
When, after several hours of (me) mixing and kneading, and rising, we - no, I - finally form the loafs, I roll out the almond paste and put it in one loaf. She keeps asking if I want to put some in the others. I decline. I tell her I'm not a big almond paste fan (childhood associations, actually) and I prefer the stollen without. She keeps asking if I am sure. Yes, I am. Really sure? Because she's sure it's better this way. Yup, sure.
She leaves shortly after, with a copy of the recipe in hand. I deliver the almond paste filled loaf to them the next day. They like it, great.
I forgot about all that in the intervening year.
This morning I received an email from SS. She asked to come over again when I am making stollen so she can be sure almond paste gets into "her" loaf.
This family is officially off the stollen recipient list. I'll email her the recipe again and offer suggestions on where to find specific ingredients (finding good quality diced candied citron is a bitch!), but I will not make it for them again.
2 comments:
The.fricking.nerve.oh.my.g*d.
You are kidding right? What is it with some folks? Good heavens.
This does remind me when our neighbor wanted so desperately to know my white cake recipe (it's just a simple buttermilk recipe right out of Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, but I have been making it for years and years and I use really high-quality butter, so it's pretty heavenly and yes people do swoon because I swear to God some people have never had homemade from scratch cake).
SO, I type up the recipe and give it to her. She is nervous about making it, so she asks me to come over and "help" her make it. I make the entire cake, of course. And when we get to the icing, she starts throwing all this sh*t into it, and improvises and sort of "shows me" how to improve it.
Yikes!
Then there is the time my MIL heard all about my mom's Peach Cobbler recipe (really simple version, old farmhouse family recipe)....and I made it once and she liked it so she asked for the recipe.
She made it and brought it to family thing ---my husband's family (shocking enough, right?), but when we tried it, she had "improved" it by loading it up with brown sugar (and maybe oatmeal I don't remember). It was such a sh*tty thing to do, I couldn't believe it. It reminded me why I couldn't soften up towards her like EVER.
It was also so ignorant, because adding all that brown sugar and stuff makes it a "crisp" or a "brown betty". Cobblers are batter-topped. Sheesh.
Obviously, you hit a nerve here.
I would be honored to have your Stollen recipe and I would make it just like the recipe said:-)
Speechless...
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