Almost summer - but not quite. In our neck of the woods, summer has official
arrived only when the cafes start to serve crushed-mint lemonade. On a sweltering day last week, I stopped at
my bakery café during an errands run, throat parched, clothes soaked through thanks
to stratospheric temperatures, and asked the waitress for one.
She looked at me askance. "It's not
summer yet!" A shake of the head. Subtext: How could you even think of
asking? Right...
Meanwhile, I waited for summer.
It came yesterday. Unofficially. Ushered in by my daughter.
This young woman is newly married. (She got married last summer - during official
summer, that is, the kind with lots of crushed-mint lemonade.) And having moved out, she is developing newly
acquired culinary skills. This is the
one child whom I could never teach how to boil an egg, who never displayed the
slightest interest in anything remotely connected to cooking, and whose one
reluctant, now-legendary, experiment with baking ended up – no joke – with chocolate-chip
salt "crackers" rather than the intended cookies.
"How will you ever feed yourself when you move
out?" I used to moan.
"I'll learn when I have to!" she'd grumble, her
head buried in a book.
But now that she's moved out into her own apartment, she's
suddenly discovered a latent culinary-whiz streak none of us suspected. Since the week after the wedding, I've been
the lucky recipient of a daily feed of Pinterest-worthy photographs of what
she's making for lunch or dinner.
With
the innocence of those who don't know better, she launches fearlessly into any
recipe that catches her fancy, regardless of complications or challenges. Gorgeously colorful salads, spicy kebabs, mouth-wateringly
beautiful meatballs, roast chickens of every variety, lasagna to make you drop
everything and rush over across town to beg for some...
Someone who didn't know would think she's
studying to be a chef, not a scientist.
When she stopped by for a few minutes yesterday, she casually
handed me a covered plate. "I brought you something," she said, as if
it was no big deal. I caught the impish
glimmer in her eye before lifting the cover.
Still warm from the oven, chocolate chip cookies.
She started to laugh. "You can eat them this time," she
assured me. "Honest!"
Then she dug into her satchel. "Oh, and this..."
She pulled out a still-frosty bottle in which swirled an emerald-green
potion.
"Mint lemonade?"
She grinned. "Yup."
So we took a mother-daughter vacation.
We sat on the porch swing, shared warm cookies and toasted
each other with chilled, crushed-mint lemonade.
It might only be May, but summer's here.
Milou Koenings is
a USA Today best-selling author. She writes romance because, like
chocolate, stories with a happy ending bring more joy into the world and
so make it a better place.

You can find her on her website,www.miloukoenings.com, on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.
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Such a fun post, Milou, and I love your book covers!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Shanna!
DeleteWhat a sweet post, Milou!
ReplyDeleteI love your book covers, too, but I don't like to cook. LOL!
ReplyDeleteLovely post, Milou!
ReplyDeleteMilou you are awesome!!your writes about romance and the stories ending with happy bring more delight into the world thus improve it a spot.I have a large collection about the federal job resume,it will help you to write more stories.
ReplyDelete