With that being said ... I have complained bitterly that she makes me eat too much food. I keep getting fat when my parents are at home. That's one of the reasons (OK, maybe it's not the main reason) I kinda, you know, want them to leave: So I don't feel pressured to eat a whole lot. (Caveat: I eat a lot worse without them around. Lots of fast food. And, I have to admit, I eat a lot without my folks at home too. OK, so maybe it's me.)
That has been compounded this past year, The Year Of The Pandemic, when she could not travel anywhere and had nothing to do except bake. She has baked stuff before, but with the advent of lockdown (and she is pretty much a homebody anyway), she dove into learning how to make cakes and pastries. And inevitably, I am the one to eat it all. It's good; there have been some misfires but some end products that have been sublime. But there's a hell of a lot.
Father does this thing where, for lunch, he packs for me both a banana and one of Mother's creations. I've never needed to-go lunch for work. Told him a million times, ever since I began my working career as a temp; he doesn't listen; I relent because he's old, I don't want to fight and I don't want to be thrown out of the house. Anyway, I just threw into a big what he is making me bring for lunch today, and the pastry Mother made (I think it's coffee-flavored?) is cold to the touch and wet. It makes me think he took it out of the freezer and has set it out just before midnight so it would thaw. So Mother has made so much food that now we're just freezing everything she makes?
If so, that might explain what happened yesterday. What Father gave me yesterday was this bun. It's a thick but fluffy bread with, according to Mother when she made it, custard inside it. It's real good. But yesterday, as I was devouring it, I look at the bun after I ate about halfway through it, including the custard core, and I see this ring around the custard. Now, the bun itself is a light/faint purple, maybe even lavender. And the custard is, of course, yellow. This ring was green. Like mold green.
Was it mold? I'm not sure. It didn't smell rotten. But it is bread, and it is moist -- perfect breeding conditions for mold. And it's been some time since I saw Mother making this kind of pastry; if that bun was from a few weeks ago -- or longer -- and stashed in a freezer, you bet your bottom dollar mold could spore.
Now, I didn't throw up or have diarrhea or anything. But after half-eating the bun for break, my heart started to race and I started to feel ... off. That could have been my hypochondria, but one thing convinced me not to take it home and finish eating it: I have had buns exactly like this before, and I have never seen a green ring around the custard core. It may not have been mold, but I was not sure what that was, and it's better to be safe than sorry. So on the way home I stopped at the gas station and threw it (along with the mask I got from work) in the trash. Sorry; I don't want to waste food, but my body was telling me that food wasn't good for me.
Will I encounter the same problem for break today with that wet, clammy pastry I just touched? And if so, wouldn't this be a sign that Mother should, you know, lay off the baking, and maybe, like, knit more instead?
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