Baking is a lot like Biology

From Painted Boots:

     I want today to be perfect.  So by the time Dad wanders downstairs I'm peeling apples, juicing oranges and lemon and mixing melted butter with cinnamon and sugar, oatmeal and flour.
     "You go now," Dad says, heading for the coffee.
     But I don't go.  I lean against the counter, ignoring the dull throb in my side, reading the recipe aloud as Dad finishes the two cobblers I started.  Turns out, baking is a lot like my biology lab work.  Just follow the directions.

I grew up in a family of cooks.  My grandmother taught home-economics in middle school, back in the days when girls were socialized to cook and clean, sew and raise kids.  I still miss her yummy banana cream pies on Thanksgiving and her rich potato salad on the Fourth of July.  But the funny thing was, my grandmother didn't like to cook--even though she was awesome in the kitchen.

In Painted Boots, Aspen struggles with her inability to step into her mother's shoes.  Maybe all girls face this, in their own way.  I know I did!