Brunch at Bittersweet Café

Slowly, he dropped to one knee and reached into his coat. Panic gripped her. Once upon a time, this was all she wanted, someone who would commit to her, who would promise to never leave. But his being here was already an answer to prayer in itself. For the first time in her life, she could see the value of patience. Her relationship with Justin wasn't something she wanted to rush. And then she exhaled on a relieved laugh when the package he withdrew from his coat turned out to be not a ring box, but something flat and rectangular wrapped in flowered paper. "I may not be as steady and reliable as Gabriel Oak, and I most certainly know nothing about sheep, but I promise you I will never be a Sergeant Troy. Will you give me another chance?" Slowly, she pulled the paper away to reveal the last thing she'd expected: the long-desired, impossible-to-find yellowback edition of Far from the Madding Crowd.

Her Instagram feed filled up with gorgeous photos of her creations displayed alongside books, some of their links tenuous at best. Double chocolate cookies made with huge chunks of Valrhona chocolate found their American-Parisian mash-up reference in Alcott's Little Women. Currant cinnamon rolls as big as a baby's head were paired with The Secret Garden. Her lemon-blueberry muffins posed alongside a favorite childhood picture book, Blueberries For Sal.

Bread shouldn't be some sort of bland, spongy starch that you use to push down your food. When it's done right, it's as complex as wine- the pleasantly sour flavor of well-fermented dough, the nutty quality of freshly ground wheat flour, the bitter caramel notes from the crust. Haven't you ever wondered why the Bible says Jesus is the bread of life? Bread was once worthy of that metaphor. Somehow I don't think He would like to be compared to Wonder Bread.

Things happen in this world- sometimes accidents, sometimes a result of our own actions- but that doesn't mean God's abandoned us. It just means that we live in a messed-up world. It's when we trust Him completely that He begins to bring good out of bad situations.

If she had even once rejected Grandma Bev's insistence that she put on a happy face and make the best of things, if she had just told her mother how hurt and abandoned she'd felt, maybe they wouldn't have had to endure over two decades of distance and resentment. Maybe she would have had her mother. Grandma Bev meant well, no doubt. She was trying to give Melody the resilience she'd needed to deal with all the changes in her young life, but it had only taught her to escape into fiction- both the kind in books and that of her own making. And instead of growing deeper in a true faith, one that was tested in tears and anguished prayers, she stuffed down her pain and retreated to superstition and magical thinking. She'd looked at God's providence like she'd looked at fairy tales- blindly and without any real belief. She'd gone from man to man, trying to buy their love at too high a price, all because she wouldn't admit how much she needed that love. How much it hurt that it always seemed to be out of reach. And because she wouldn't admit any of it, she just went on haplessly repeating her mistakes instead of turning to the One who loved her no matter what.

The pastry came first. If cooks had their mother sauces, pastry chefs had their mother doughs, and pâte à choux was the grand dame among them. It was one of the first things she'd learned to make and still one of her favorites. There was magic in the way the dough went together, butter and flour and salt, cooked until the raw flavor of the flour disappeared, but not so much that it went dry and crumbly. Then four or five eggs got added one at a time until it transformed into a thick batter. It was traditional to beat it by hand, but Melody had learned long ago she got more consistent results with far less effort by using a stand mixer. Then she spooned the batter into a piping bag fitted with star tip and piped long, uniform lines of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. As soon as those went into the oven, she began to concoct her flavors. A maple-and-vanilla crème that would be topped with a maple glaze and bacon bits. A lemon curd topped with toasted meringue, the filling for which was already prepared and jarred in her fridge from her lemon bar experiment earlier that week. A cardamom-scented custard paired with a brûléed sugar glaze.

Rachel reappeared with a wooden peel holding a free-form pizza heaped with vegetables, its edges blackened by the flame. Melody's mouth practically watered at the sight of it. The moules on Saturday had been amazing, but after the day she'd had, pizza and wine and butterscotch bars- hopefully with good coffee- would feed her soul as much as her body. Her friend cut the pizza into diagonal strips with a dangerous-looking mezzaluna, and then it was a free-for-all to grab the crispiest slices. Melody closed her eyes to savor the perfectly tender vegetables on top of the crisp pizza crust and sighed with happiness. "You did a garlic Parmesan cream sauce." "I figured I was allowed to deviate from traditional primavera since it's pizza." "It's good Parmesan." "Local. Makes up for the fact it's not Italian.

Just because they were homey didn't mean they were ordinary. Most versions of this recipe relied on butterscotch chips, waxy little chunks of hydrogenated oil and synthetic butterscotch flavor. Bev's used malted milk powder and a truckload of butter, relying on the interaction between the oven's heat and the milk powder to give that toasty, caramelized flavor that suggested rather than screamed butterscotch. Melody's version also subbed brown sugar for some of the white with a healthy shot of molasses to add a deep, earthy note. At the last moment, she added some chopped hazelnuts from a little glass jar in the cabinet for extra texture and flavor. Thoughts of Justin faded as she mixed and spread the batter, then slid the shallow jelly roll pan into the oven where it would bake into a sheet of butterscotchy, nutty deliciousness. When it came out dozens of minutes later, fragrant and golden brown, she inhaled the aroma, basking in her sense of accomplishment at a perfect result. There was nothing like taking basic ingredients and transforming them into something both beautiful and tasty.

Something smells amazing. What are we having?" "Moules marinières," Rachel said. "It seemed a shame to let mussel season close without making it at least once." "Oh la la," Melody said. "Paris must have been in the air today, because I made a napoleon." Ana handed over a half-filled wineglass and gave Melody a quick hug. "You're killing me, Mel. I'm still recovering from last week's Death by Chocolate Mousse.

The napoleon was an old-fashioned pastry, named after the Italian city rather than the French emperor as so many assumed, so it definitely had to be classic European literature. Melody ran her fingers across the spines of the cloth-bound volumes as if she could absorb their essences by touch. Tolstoy, Hugo, Eliot... Dumas. She smiled and tipped a scarlet-bound volume of The Count of Monte Cristo off the shelf. Perfect. A French book about a pretend Italian count paired with an Italian dessert with pretend French roots? Her more literate followers would get a kick out of the parallels. Not to mention that Napoleon himself figured prominently in the plot.

What would you do if you could snap your fingers and make it all different?" Melody didn't even hesitate. "Open my own place. French-inspired, most likely, with all those amazing pastries I fell in love with in Paris. Maybe light lunch fare. Hearty bread, the way it's supposed to be done- heirloom wheat baguettes baked bien cuit, that point just before burnt where the crust gets rich and caramelly.

He'd thought that God was distant, but until now, he'd never thought He was cruel.

When we let ourselves cry over things that weren’t ours in the first place, it’s like telling God that we don’t appreciate what He’s actually given us.