Special to the Star-Herald
Folklore has it that warm hands indicate a warm heart. I think that our hands — warm, cold or with other mysterious conditions — influence our lives at more than making love.
There is nothing wrong with making love. I want to be quick to point that out. Years ago, I sat visiting with a neighbor lady who was a generation or two my senior. She folded a washing of clothes as we talked, and I marveled at how the clothes smoothed out as she passed her hands over them. The cloth actually looked ironed.
“Oh,” she explained, “I have warm hands. Everyone’s hands are different you know.”
I folded a few pieces of her laundry and, sure enough, the cloth didn’t react to my hands as it did to hers. Could that be, I wondered, why I couldn’t make good doughnuts?
At that time, I was cooking for our hunting lodge and dining room in Oxbow. I could make every item on our smorgasbord line come out right — even pies, cakes, breads and pastries. But, no doubt about it, I couldn’t make good doughnuts. That certainly touched my pride, maybe even my ego. As my children would say, it bugged me.
There were several very good doughnut makers in the community, including my friend who could iron clothes with her hands. I put my pride in my pocket, and I asked them all how they made good doughnuts.
They were generous. They gave me their recipes – plain, chocolate and molasses. They explained the process and I tried. I still didn’t make good doughnuts, plain chocolate or molasses.
While discussing my problem — even perhaps my mystery — with one of my good doughnut-making neighbors, she said, “You know, everyone has different hands. The same dough is different for different people. For instance, some people have to use more flour to keep dough from sticking to their hands. We all have to cook however it works for us.”
I tried again. I adjusted recipes, frying fat temperature and everything else I could think of. I had a lot of other cooking to do, so I couldn’t dedicate myself to a failure. To this day I haven’t made good doughnuts. Maybe my hands jinx my doughnuts.
It has been a generation or two since I last tried to make doughnuts. I’m not going to try again because my husband and I don’t eat doughnuts now. However, if you have doughnut hands, if you make good doughnuts, have at it. I’m going to make other stuff for the next Aroostook Agency on Aging Caring Craft Fair. You bring your doughnuts.
For information on issues related to aging, contact the Aroostook Agency on Aging at 764-3396 or 800-439-1789. E-mail Info@aroostookaging.org or visit www.aroostookaging.org.
