Last night my husband Rob and I attended a meeting of the East Lansing City’s Planning Commission (because we know how to have a good time) which started at 7:00. These meetings, or at least the part with which we are concerned, usually end by 8:30 or 9:00, so we left Sam Home Alone. He is 11, we were literally 3 minutes away, and there were neighbors home.
The meeting lasted until after 10:00, and because we are very bad parents, and really wanted to be there when the vote on our issue was taken (we lost, by the way), we didn’t get home until after 10:30. (Before you call Child Protective Services, I should add that it was not a school night because he is on spring break). in the midst of getting the dogs out, making wild promises of what we “owed” him for abandoning him, and checking phone messages, Rob noticed an empty Angel Food Cake box in the kitchen, and a sink full of dirty dishes. The kitchen table was also suspiciously sticky.
Last night my husband Rob and I attended a meeting of the East Lansing City’s Planning Commission (because we know how to have a good time) which started at 7:00. These meetings, or at least the part with which we are concerned, usually end by 8:30 or 9:00, so we left Sam Home Alone. He is 11, we were literally 3 minutes away, and there were neighbors home.
The meeting lasted until after 10:00, and because we are very bad parents, and really wanted to be there when the vote on our issue was taken (we lost, by the way), we didn’t get home until after 10:30. (Before you call Child Protective Services, I should add that it was not a school night because he is on spring break). in the midst of getting the dogs out, making wild promises of what we “owed” him for abandoning him, and checking phone messages, Rob noticed an empty Angel Food Cake box in the kitchen, and a sink full of dirty dishes. The kitchen table was also suspiciously sticky.
“Sam,” he inquired cautiously, “is there a cake somewhere?” Sam giggled.
“Uhm, no, it blew up, but I pretty much cleaned everything.” He went on to explain that he had left the batter mixing for about 15 minutes while he played X-Box Live (thus aerating it to the point of virtual carbonation), and that as soon as it started baking it began first to rise alarmingly, and then to fire shots of goo all over the inside of the oven. He allowed as how he had put a pan under it to catch the worst of the drips, and called my mother, who had suggested that he abandon the experiment and clean up as much as he could.
So, I rinsed out the mixer bowl, the paddle, the sticky pan, the tube pan and an inexplicable assortment of spoons, spatulas and chopsticks (?!), cleaned the table, and went to bed happy that I am raising a kid who, left to his own devices, chooses to bake a cake. Sort of.
Ann Graham Nichols cooks and writes the Forest Street Kitchen blog in East Lansing, Michigan where she lives in a 1912 house with her husband, her son and an improbable number of animals.