Recipe for Disaster by Aimee Lucido

Author:Aimee Lucido
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358387169
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

Baklava

Remember:

For therapeutic baklava: crush nuts with a hammer.

For less mess: use a food processor.

Countdown

Ten

nine

eight

seven

six

five

four

three

two

one

* * *

happy new year to me

and baklava for sixteen

for one.

Back to School

Back-to-school Monday is a marble swirl of a day, with everyone except Dad and Sam forgetting to set their alarms and waking up in a panic when the garbage trucks beep outside our front yard.

With my rude awakening, I have fifteen minutes to straighten my hair and put my new necklace in my pocket before we’re out the door and I’m nodding off in the passenger seat of Grandma Mimi’s car. She must be half asleep too, because I wake up to her making a U-turn and mumbling something under her breath.

“Whoops. Old habits . . .” she says, and I blink my eyes open to realize we’re pulling away from Shira’s house. “Sorry, bubbelah,” Grandma Mimi says. “Took the old turn by mistake. Back on our way to school.”

And as we drive back the way we came, I look through our rear window to see Shira leaving her house. She doesn’t seem to notice our car, which is good, I guess, but it’s weird. I think this winter break is the longest I’ve gone without seeing her since we met.

She must have gotten a haircut recently, since it’s shorter than I remember, and I don’t recognize the jacket she’s wearing—must have been a Hanukkah present—and I think her boots might be new too. It’s like every day I don’t see her, she changes a little bit, and as those little changes add up, she becomes more and more a stranger to me.

Before I know it, school has begun, and I’m sitting in social studies with Vee, and except for the purple streak in her hair that’s magically turned blue, she looks the same as ever.

“Hi,” I say.

“Salutations,” she says back, and with that, it’s like no time has passed. We dive into our first partner discussion question of the new year, “What I Did Over My Winter Break,” but it isn’t long before our conversation shifts away from sleeping late and boring TV binges to more interesting things, like baklava and sufganiyot.

Before long, Vee is asking me if I want to go to her house tomorrow night to bake with her. “My Tía Rosa is in town,” she says, “and she wants to teach me how to make buñuelos. You know, like sufganiyot, but better. I feel like you would be an asset in the kitchen, so wanna join?”

She’s fiddling with her necklace as she asks me this, the way she always does when she’s nervous or uncomfortable, but this time, I have a twin necklace in my pocket, which I squeeze too. “I’d love to come!” I say. “Can’t wait!”

And I mean it. This is a fresh year and a fresh start. And there’s nothing I’d love to do more than start it off with my new friend, Vee.

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