starts at 234 degrees. But don’t let it get to 234. Take it off the burner when the thermometer gets to 233.”
Joan stares at the thermometer in her hand with red liquid in the bottom that will climb up through the thermometer as the temperature rises. “My thermometer doesn’t say 233. It just says softball.” She catches herself. “Soft ball.”
“Just take it off the burner before it reaches soft ball,” her mother says. “You can also test a little bit of it by pouring it into some cold water. If it forms a soft ball in your hand, you know that it’s ready.”
Shaking her head, Joan says, “There’s no way I’m trying that. I don’t even know what that really means. Well, if anything, we can pour this over ice cream and eat it.”
“You can do it!” Alice says. “I bet you’ll all love it so much that you’ll end up making another batch in a few weeks.”
“We love Aunt DeeDee’s fudge, Mom,” Joan says, reaching for a pot. “It could be an entirely different story when I make Aunt DeeDee’s fudge.”
“Call me later and tell me how it turned out.”
Joan hangs up the phone and puts the sugar into the pot with the milk. She then measures out a cup of Marshmallow Fluff and puts that into a separate small bowl, along with a cup of peanut butter. After she stirs the milk and sugar together, she turns on the burner and places the thermometer on the side of the pot so the bottom of it is immersed into the mixture. She is paranoid as she watches the temperature, stirring consistently as the red moves upward through the slender thermometer.
“Is it done yet?” Gigi asks, playing with Christopher on the kitchen floor. Joan has learned the best spot for the children to play while she is cooking is right in the heart of the kitchen with her.
“Not yet,” Joan says, stooping over to make sure she is seeing the correct temperature. The temperature rises quickly during the first several minutes of cooking but seems to crawl for the last several, making Joan wonder if something is wrong with the thermometer. She stays stooped over, watching the red dye as it creeps toward 234 degrees. Before it reaches soft ball, she turns off the burner and removes the pan from the stove. Taking the thermometer out of the pot, she uses a spatula and adds the Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter to the mixture, along with a teaspoon of vanilla. She stirs everything together and then pours the mixture into a buttered pan. “Who wants to lick the pan and the spoon?”
Gigi and Christopher are in front of her before she finishes the question, raising their little hands for the goodies. Joan leaves enough in the bowl for all three of them, and as the warm peanut butter fudge hits her tongue, she smiles in satisfaction. “Wow! So good.”
“Yummy!” Gigi says, running her spoon around the bottom of the pan.
When the kids aren’t looking, Joan uses her spoon and scoops some fudge from the pan. She remembers loving it this way as a child when her mom made it, warm and gooey right out of the pan. She looks at the soft brown fudge and hopes it will “set up,” as her mom always said.
* * *
John lifts a long, thick slab of black walnut inside his workshop and sets it on the wood plane to begin the process of planing each side. He’ll rotate the wood until it’s approximately a one-and-a-quarter-inch square piece of lumber and thirty-one inches long and will repeat this for each leg before working on tapering them. He stops his work when Joan opens the door, letting the children run in ahead of her. She’s holding a small plate in her hand. “Is that lunch?” he says, shutting off the planer.
“It’s peanut butter fudge!” Gigi squeals. “It’s yummy!” The little girl jumps up and down, waving her arms as if she’s about to take flight.
“Is this Aunt DeeDee’s peanut butter fudge?” John asks, taking the plate and lifting a piece. Joan nods. “There’s nothing like it.” He watches Gigi move busily around the workshop and smiles. “It looks like Mommy filled your tank with fudge because you have lots of energy!”
“Just eat some and you can do this, too,” Gigi says, jumping.
He bites into a piece, closing his eyes. “Mmm. The best.” He opens his eyes, looking at her as he pops the rest of