I Am The Erotic Betty Crocker

The 1950 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook says that it's easy to catch a proper man by impressing him with your cooking skills. If you turn out dozens of cookies that remind him of his mother's, he's yours.

The 1950 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook is the first cookbook I ever cooked from. It was passed down from my great grandmother to my grandmother to my mother. She--my mother--brings it out for her pie crusts, her roasts, her cookies, and her frostings. The pages are thick and waxy. There are flaky crumbs caught in the binding. And when I was a little girl, I used to sit over it and read each passage over and over and over, hoping and praying that I'd someday be a fine enough cook to present a tray of cookies to a man who would take one bite, savor, and announce that the cookie was perfect--just like me--and if he didn't marry me right away he'd be a fool.

As it turns out, I have loved many a fool.

Tonight my father came into my room to tell me that my brother and his friend Wisconsin Boy were coming over for dinner. There was a pork roast in the crock pot and there were plans for squash, corn, and baked potatoes. When I heard Wisconsin Boy was coming that changed everything.

First, it changed the fact that I needed to re-dress. I'd come home from my weekend at Amy and Becky's early in the afternoon. I'd showered and changed into Sunday afternoon clothes: sweatpants and a sweatshirt. My hair was up, my makeup was off. In short, I was a walking antonym for the word ravishing. Since I had been wearing Power Puff girl slipper socks the first time I met Wisconsin Boy, I figured I had a lot of work to do to reverse whatever first impressions he had formed, so I did my hair and makeup, put on jeans, selected earrings.

Second, it changed what I was going to be doing with my afternoon. Now with the prospect of a cute boy sitting down to dinner at my table, I had to do some baking. At first I thought cookies. I remembered the lessons Betty Crocker taught me when I was little. I thought warm snickerdoodles or double-chocolate chunk cookies. But then I thought No! Not impressive enough! So I rolled out the big guns: individual molten chocolate cakes.

This is just what I do. We all know my social skills--especially in those tenuous first interactions--are completely sub-par (see also: any story about the first time I meet a man), so I tend to try to impress in other ways. Some girls use their breasts. Others use their butts. I use my oven.

I charmed Keith with giant breakfasts in bed. The Wily Republican got meatloaves and cookies delivered to him before big tests or papers. New Boy's going away gift was opening the door to my apartment and seeing me standing in the kitchen wearing only my underwear, while taking a freshly-baked pan of triple chocolate brownies out of the oven.

What's with these boys? If it were 1954 one of them would've come to their senses and put down some money for an engagement ring already. But they all just smile and accept their foodstuffs. They put their foreheads on mine and say, "This is amazing. This is so good. You are great." And then they run off to other zip codes or after girls who have stupid names and attend cosmetology school. Sure those girls might be able to tame their eyebrows, but they're just going to bring home a roast chicken from Boston Market at the end of the day, and who prefers to that to real food?

But despite my failing record--even after I bring out the food--I keep on trying. Even with boys who are my brother's friends--boys who are much too young for me, but who are, despite that, built really, really well and impossible to ignore when they're standing in your kitchen and flashing you smiles.

Tonight Wisconsin Boy didn't end up coming to dinner. He came later. He came after the dramatic presentation of the individual molten chocolate cakes. He came after calling my brother 8,000 times.

One of those times my brother handed the phone to me.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Wisconsin Boy," he said. "He wants to talk to you."

"Adam," I hissed. "What have you been telling him? Did you ask him to do this?"

"He wants to talk to you," Adam said. "His idea."

I put the phone to my ear. I said, "Hello? Wisconsin Boy? Is that you?"

"Hey!" Wisconsin Boy said. "Are you coming back to the cabin with us? Come to the cabin."

I told Wisconsin Boy that I was pretty sure my brother would rather die a horrible, ugly, flaming death than be subjected to having his sister go back to the cabin with him and his friends.

"Bullshit!" Wisconsin Boy said. "That's just bullshit! Come back with us. We'll all have fun."

"You'll need to take that up with him," I said. "But anyway, I made you chocolate cake."

Wisconsin Boy's voice dropped lower. He sounded intrigued. "Chocolate cake, huh?" he asked.

And then I handed the phone back to my brother so I could drink more wine and drown in my own embarrassment. After all, I had almost certainly just been privately mocked by my brother and his irritatingly cute friend and I'd just flirted with a much-too-young boy. A boy who cannot legally buy beer unless he's in Canada.

Adam hung up the phone a minute later. "Just so you know," he said, "I don't ever want to be back at the cabin and look over to see you there doing things with Wisconsin Boy."

"Like making out with him?" I asked. "Because I'd almost certainly make out with him. Just so you know."

My brother made a face. He looked queasy. "Yeah," he said. "Like that."

Twenty minutes later, Wisconsin Boy was stepping into my house. My brother said, "My sister's in the kitchen."

Wisconsin Boy came straight to me. He walked over. He asked how I'd been.

"You look a lot different than last time," he said. "You know, you're not wearing pajamas or anything."

"Stop flirting with my sister," Adam said.

Later, when Adam wanted to go into the basement to find ping pong balls for the game of beer pong they'd be setting up at the cabin, he gave Wisconsin Boy a very serious look. "Are you going to come with me?" he asked. "Or are you just going to stand here in the kitchen with my sister?"

Wisconsin Boy wanted to know where the cake was. I started telling him how his was still in the fridge--you can't cook molten chocolate cakes until right before they're about to be eaten--but Adam was getting impatient.

"Come on," he said. "We've got to get going."

Wisconsin Boy shrugged, gave me a bright-eyed smile. "Goodbye," he said. "It was good to see you."

"You have a girlfriend," my brother said as he herded him out the front door.

After they left my father and I sat in silence for awhile. We drank wine and watched Iron Chef. Then my father reached over to pat my hand. "Don't you need to go call Amy?" he asked. "You know, to tell her about Wisconsin Boy?"

After I filled her in, Amy laughed and said, "Jess, you're the Erotic Betty Crocker. I think you need to spend less time baking boys cookies and more time baking me cookies." And the truth is that's probably a better use of my time. I guarantee I'm more likely to end up marrying Amy (and thus proving my grandmother's suspicions correct) than I am marrying any of the men I try so hard to impress with things like ganache and fudge and scalloped potatoes.

But it's still fun to try. It's still fun to break out the best recipes I've got--the famous almond butter cookies, my meatloaf, my Buffalo chicken bites--and set them in front of a boy and wait for that soft look of happiness to cross his face. It might not have won me a husband or even a boyfriend, but it has given me some pleasant alternatives. And it's nice to know that it might have caused my brother some pain--even if it was minor--when he had to ask Wisconsin Boy if he was going to stand in our kitchen all night and talk about chocolate cake with his sister. I don't even care if they spent the rest of their night drinking beer and laughing at how nice it was of Wisconsin Boy to give me a little attention, to humor me, to make me feel like my pouring chocolate batter into tiny ramekins was not, in fact, in vain.