Big Mike: The Great Biscotti Storm

Saturday night about ten o’clock, I decided to make biscotti. The Loved One, who can’t get enough of them, asked me to make them with almonds this time. Nothin’ to it, I replied.

Which was a too-glib response. Making biscotti isn’t neat and clean like making cookies or cakes. You can’t use a wooden spoon or a mixer. You have to get down and dirty and plunge your hands into a thick, sticky mass of glop in order to mix up the ingredients. After about 23 seconds of squishing dough through your fingers, you pull your hands out and it looks as though you’re wearing enormous yellow mittens. You try to scrape one hand with the other but the substance only becomes even more adhesive.

Admittedly, it’s not a predicament on a par with trying to scratch out a subsistence in Karachi but it’ll do for a lazy Saturday night.

I had the Saturday Night Blues Party on the kitchen radio while TLO laid on the sofa and finished watching “A Night at the Opera.” Thunder had been rumbling in the distance for a good half hour. As I mixed my flour, sugar and eggs, I heard her voice.

“Mike?”

“Yes, dear.”

“The Marx Brothers – were they supposed to be funny?”

The question took me aback. The Marx Brothers are supposed to be funny the way that the Cubs are supposed to break my heart and Glenn Beck is supposed to be a dick. Then again, TLO has her own standard of humor. Don’t ask me to define it, just take my word.

“I guess so,” I said tersely. I’d been growing frustrated by my dough. It felt as though I was mixing concrete.

“I can’t believe they made whole movies.”

“Yes, dear.”

With that, the house was flooded with a bright blue light and a clap of thunder rattled the windows. The cats flew under the furniture. TLO switched to The Weather Channel and began reading aloud from the severe storm warning crawl: “A line of storms is crossing the Ohio River at 35 miles per hour! Pea-sized hail and wind gusts up to 65 miles an hour! Deadly lightning strikes!” (The exclamation points were hers.)

Poor TLO. She hadn’t even had the chance to build a sofa cushion fort in the hallway when a thunder clap with the decibel level of Krakatoa exploded. Little Richard had been singing “The Girl Can’t Help It” at that moment and suddenly, he fell silent. The lights flickered once or twice and then went out. It was as black as a Birther’s soul.

And there I stood with my hands submerged in a bowl of wet concrete. I extricated myself from the glop and felt around for the drawer with the flashlight in it. Of course, I was wearing the usual pair of thick yellow dough mittens. After I found it, just trying to switch it on took a minute and a half. At this point I began swearing.

“Honey! I need help!” (Muttering under my breath, Goddamn it!)

No answer.

“HONEY! I NEED YOUR HELP!” (Stupid god damned dough!)

Nothing.

I edged out into the den, hoping not to step on a cat’s tail – which, come to think of it, would have been just perfect. I heard TLO in the basement, probably gathering survival gear. The house filled with bright blue light again, undoing any acclimation my eyes might have made to the dark. I heard a rustle underneath the recliner next to me. Oh god damn it, I thought, I know I’m gonna step on a cat’s tail.

Then TLO appeared, carrying three lighted flashlights. Truth.

“Help me!”

“Mike, there a storm!”

“I don’t care! My dough’s gonna go to waste!” After a minute of back and forth, I finally guilted and badgered her to hold up one of the flashlights so I could see my bowl. I finished mixing the dough and tried to lay it out. No dice. It was unmanageable, I was pissed and TLO was literally shuddering next to me. I absent-mindedly placed my hands on my hips while I pondered my next move, only to realize I’d now put two huge glops of dough on my pants. God. Damn. It!

The lights went back on. The thunder became more distant. The Loved One visibly relaxed. The cats emerged from their hiding places. But my dough was a gluey mess. I threw my hands in the air.

“God damn it! Stupid fucking dough! Fuck it,” I said as I dumped the breadboard and the dough in the sink.

“That’s alright,” TLO said soothingly. “Make your biscotti another time. I don’t need any more sweets right now.”

I was in no mood to be soothed. My end of the conversation devolved into a string of god damn its.

Some 15 minutes later, the thunder was long gone and The Loved One was in bed. I stared at the glop of dough in the sink, shaking my head. I was no longer frustrated. I tittered, hehe, thinking what an opera singer I’d been. I started running the water to get the drying dough off the breadboard. And then it hit me. Water! That just might make the dough manageable. You’re not supposed to use water in biscotti dough but, hell, what do I have to lose? I moistened the glop, formed it, laid it out and popped it in the oven. Swear to god, my biscotti came out perfectly. I brought a piece to TLO as she read in bed.

“This is perfect,” she said, her mouth half-full.

I bit into one. “Yup,” I agreed. “Perfect.”

Monday morning, after I’d sent The Loved One off to Bloomington, I went back inside, looking forward to a hot cup of coffee and a biscotti. Only there were no biscotti. She’d taken them all with her.

God damn it.