A few weeks ago I was invited and generously accepted an invitation to go bake for a cousin's bat mitzvah (because calling a caterer would be so impersonal). So I gave up precious weekend time in the name of being a trooper. We all showed up and all the ingredients were there and I dug in with both hands (despite the unsavory sexist overtones of all the women in the family expected to do this), but I was fine because I like to bake. Of course, my MIL, being the queen bee, was assigned to make the crowning glory of the event: a very complicated 15-step chocolate bobka. And I didn't envy her, either...but my tasks were more menial. One of the grown cousins actually wanted to double-up with me to make a brownie mix. I nixed that right off, let me tell you.
So I was a machine, moving from job to job with efficiency and ease. After I'd proven myself with a few mixes, etc, they trusted me with a beloved family chocolate chip cookie recipe. I don't have to tell y'all that I graduated from chocolate chip cookie baking in about the fourth grade. But whatever, give me the recipe and let me get it done so I can go home.
So the recipe says, "Drop by Tablespoons on ungreased cookie sheet." I dropped by tablespoons and the cookies were freaking enormous. I went to the mother of the bat mitzvah/hostess of the upcoming events, and said, "Is this right? This is what the directions say, but they look way too big." This woman is a 45-year-old mother of two teenagers, and here is what she said to me. "Let's go ask." I was like, "Well, what do you think?" and she emphatically said, "No, this is something you need to understand. You always need to ask. Just do it." So here we trudge to a table of certified grandmothers, and the hostess of everything was like, "Mom, are these cookies that Twinkle made the right size?" And of course every woman at the table was like, "No--half that size." So I came away looking like an idiot, when all I was doing was following directions and then asking a person who had actually had the cookies before what they were supposed to look like...oh, these young wives think they know everything, but what they really need is a table of Bubbies telling them what to do...
(There was also an incident with parchment paper in which I was lovingly mocked for allegedly not knowing its purpose. Like any person who has ever baked, I was greasing the pan, flouring it, and then lining it with parchment paper...but then came the loving reprimand. "Honey, grease after you put in the parchment paper. So you don't have to scrub it as much." I'm sorry, but that is so not the purpose of parchment paper).
Anyway, if you have to consult a parent on the size of some chocolate chip cookies, why wouldn't you just go ahead and let your parents run every other aspect of your life, too? The need for advice on cookie size, the way no one trusts young mothers with their own babies, the lack of self-confidence in the younger generations (i.e. doubling up on brownie mix), the inability of the older generations to recognize adult children as competent...it's all starting to come together in a bizarre hierarchical jigsaw puzzle. And I feel like I've come along and inadvertently knocked the table over, just in the process of going about my business.
I think that's why I'm so determined to throw a fabulous party for the family without much help--and, really, I wouldn't ever want much help with something like this. I like to be in control of my house/kitchen/parties. (MIL is contributing some cookies, which I appreciate--she'll probably bring so many there won't be room for the food I made). In a way I want to show that unfortunate 45-year-old cousin that she, too, can be fabulous, and cook by herself without maternal supervision, and put together a menu and pull it off with her own two hands, without comment or opinion from anyone. And if anyone's mother wants to comment on my party, I hope it begins and ends at, "Oh, how fabulous!" Somehow I doubt it'll go down that way, but hope springs eternal.
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