At the back of the recipe box in my kitchen lays a frayed recipe card for fruit pizza. The number of hands that have exchanged this dear notecard, I will never know. When everything you love and hold dear washes away again and again and again in the sands of your life, often all you have left to cling to are the words that brought you comfort during your fondest years.
When I was a girl, my grandmother whisked me from the house on mild late-summer nights to watch as the trees drained their color. A comfortable silence settled over us after sufficient conversation had been exchanged, and we sometimes walked for hours simply listening to the happy families in their yards, laughing or barbecuing or simply talking about their days.
One night, a neighboring family noticed Nana Bagel and me walking quietly down the sidewalk and invited us into their yard to share their family’s favorite delicacy: a colorful fruit pizza that they had all made together in their home.
We laughed and talked in the fading summer afternoon, the mother’s hands so soft and teeth so straight and her children so young and sweet, and we sliced the delicate cookie crust topped with cool yogurt and fruits from their yard, and we ate it there together and were happy. Before returning home, I asked the kind family for the recipe and saved it for my recipe box in hopes that one day, my own family would sit in a yard just like that.
Perhaps that day is just a bit warmer in my memory than it truly was; perhaps I remember the fruit pizza just a bit sweeter. Either way, as I take out that old note card and bring the ingredients home to my dear family, their eyes do not sparkle the way mine did on that day.
My two little Bagels walk away to play video games in their bedrooms, and Mr. Bagel lingers at work late into the night, dutifully attending a Saturday meeting with his boss, Amanda.
I am left alone with my recipe for fruit pizza, as I have been so many times before.
Old memories dance in my vision like the oven light upon the wet cookie dough. I press all of my weight down onto the rolling pin, heaving and pulling, watching its elasticity rebel and rise again — up and down, like Mr. Bagel’s doughy stomach — as sunset falls.
The crust over time is spread thin. An hour later, I collect the sugary disc and hold its warmth close. I envelop the top with unsalted yogurt and arrange my store-bought fruit just so. Cantaloupe, banana, mango, and watermelon complete rings and rows atop my humble creation, a constellation of perfect harmony.
Dinner arrives.
But the trees that stood green in the springs of my youth now stand bare in the winters of my adulthood, and I sit alone on the porch, trying not to let cookie and yogurt crumble and melt in my hands.
After all, I have always hated letting go.
Anyway, here’s the recipe:
- Roll cookie dough into a flat circle and bake.
- Spread yogurt and fruit. Arrange idealistically.
- Serve. Attempt to enjoy.
Abby is a "journalist" who has never told a lie in her life. She enjoys long walks on the beach, beating dead horses, and running content at every possible moment.
