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Post #168 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett

July 2011 Memoir Contest – Honorable Mention Story

Women’s Memoirs is pleased to publish the second of three Honorable Mention winners in our July Memoir Writing Contest, Independence Category. Congratulations to Judith Newton for her personal coming of age story. Be sure to check out the recipe at the end of her vignette.

Memoir Contest Honorable Mention
MASTERING THE ART
By Judith Newton

Berkeley, 1964.

I placed my hands in a bowl of butter and flour with the intention of rubbing them together until they resembled flakes of oatmeal. Mother had never used anything but a fork to mix her dough, but I was following Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And Mastering the Art strictly maintained that “a necessary part of learning how to cook is to get the feel of the dough in your fingers.”

I didn’t mind getting my fingers all gummy with the dough because, in my imagination, this messy procedure completely divorced my venture into baking from my mother’s pastry practices–and from the sorrows of my relation to her. [click to continue…]

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