For My First Culinary Trick, I Attempt Bananas Foster Hand Pies

and I’ve never had Bananas Foster or eaten a hand pie. I know that the recipe’s

25-minute prep time will mean an hour and a half for me. When Finn

calls, I tell him I’ve learned to cook, without knowing why. I’ve read hundreds

of recipes, mommy-bloggers who find time to share secret ingredients though

their children have the stomach flu. Paragraphs of the terrible twos and finally

finding comfort food to fit the small overlap in the diet restrictions’ Venn

diagram. Each mention of the husband is a note on how hard it is to find food

he likes. But I’m learning by crossing off things that I know he doesn’t! Optimism

remains my most loyal digestif. I nod when reading that milk will help soften

the crust, not knowing I wanted the crust soft until instructed. Finn laughs

at my penchant for drugstore chocolate. Shouldn’t you be more creative with your

sweet tooth? But teeth–like trees, like stoplights, like bed frames–don’t choose

their cravings, each as self-destructive and predictable as the next.

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KELSEY CARMODY WORT has poems in Nashville Review, The Shore, and South Carolina Review. She loves her home state of Wisconsin, pop music, and postcards with painted flowers. She holds an MFA from Purdue University and lives in New York City.

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