Amandine Audio Show: Bread Crumbs on the Path

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Crumb by crumb the children's way 

   
​    I was one of those children, unsettled for days at Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs on the path. As the story was read,
I’d be wondering--are they squashing the crumbs with their fingers before they drop them? Like I squished a communion bread cube, making it into a doughy lump? Was it white or brown bread? If the bread was brown, then how will they see the crumbs in the moonlight? I was afraid for them, of course it was brown bread because their father was but a poor woodcutter. The anxiety it caused me to think of birds flocking down and eating up, crumb by crumb those children’s way home.
    It didn’t get any better for me at the witch's house. I wanted it to be a delicious gingerbread house, something worth nibbling. A can’t stay away from it gingerbread --dark, spicy, molasses… but I couldn’t get past whether the gingerbread was stale or not. I would spend that entire part of the story imaginatively tasting the siding, and it always fell short. I was disturbed at the thought of icing, I don’t like icing, it’s too sweet, and icing that’s been in the weather, no good.
    But I did like Hansel sticking out that chicken bone to the nearsighted hag. The oven was a particular favorite moment, because I like ovens, especially hearths. The feeling of the orange heat rushing out towards me, as I Gretel, opened that door without even an oven mitt, and flipped, without any fuss, that wicked witch in. Served her right for having a soggy gingerbread house, in obviously a Pacific Northwest climate.     

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About the Amandine Audio Show

    I love to write creative nonfiction, and some fiction about food. I wanted a place to share it with others, and thank a blue dot kitchen for being friendly enough to accommodate me. 
    Food is a big place, well beyond "what's for dinner?" or going out to eat. Food encapsulates all the important themes of our lives, it's this part that interests me most.