Bubbles, Butter and Baking

Dear Mrs. Dixon, I think of you every time I make a cake and right before I put the pan in the oven I "burp" it to get all the air bubbles out, just like you taught me in 7th grade. I didn't know it at the time, but your class turned out to be the most important one I ever took. (Well to be perfectly honest, the typing class I took at the same time sure has come in handy too, as I am typing this with all five fingers and am still fairly accurate. ) However you are right up there among my favorite teachers of all time. My love of baking started with you and I still live by your Maxim that if the recipe has butter and sugar in it, you whip it until it is light and fluffy no matter what the directions say.

My Mom bought me my first cook book for Christmas that year (still have it) and told me that she would buy me whatever ingredients I needed. I tried out every single cookie recipe in that cookbook at least once! My brothers loved it when I baked and they and their friends would eat the cookies, as fast as I could take them out of the oven. When I was first married it was the only cooking that I was really good at. I started a recipe collection at that time too, in a big 3-ring binder. You would photo-copy the recipes for us and would you believe that I still have those too?

I don't know where you are these days but I hope you had some satisfaction in knowing you were helping us to become good future wives and mothers. I hope that my baking is one of things my children will remember fondly,when they are old and on their own.

So thank you dear Mrs. Dixon for sharing your wonderful talent in the kitchen with all of us gawky teenage girls. I remember you fondly whenever that wonderful baked aroma comes out of my oven and I know it is done.