Standard Measure
It started with teaspoons.
In every mailbox, they’d put fliers. A grace period to turn in your teaspoons without penalty.
One-half teaspoons, too. Quarter measures.
Tablespoons were exempt.
So, my mother took most of the set of measuring spoons out of the drawer and dropped them into a paper envelope. She peeled off the wax paper strip to reveal the stickiness underneath, sealed the pouch, and walked off to the station leaving behind one lonely ceramic tablespoon in our kitchen drawer.
Oma sat crocheting granny squares — Oma’s squares, in our house — while the local anchorwoman spoke in a live broadcast from outside the station. Our neighbors lined up to turn in silver teaspoons, porcelain measures, and little copper scoops.
“...recent changes in the illegal drug trade have made authorities concerned about the popularity of selling in new increments. Most commonly, the teaspoon is used to measure out…”
Oma’s crochet hook swam through her yarn. She was practiced, and she didn’t really need to look at the yarn to work it, but she didn’t really seem to be watching the television either.
I shifted my weight on the sofa, leaning towards her.
“How will you cook, now?”
Her whole body, old and light and full of hollowing bones, jumped with her snort, except her hands. They stayed perfectly steady, crochet hook bobbing on as she laughed.
“All that kind of stuff is better to measure with the heart anyway.”
So, months passed and people didn’t have teaspoons. The recipe blogs were full of posts on recommended conversions. Some famous chefs echoed Oma. They shrugged and smiled into the camera and told their audience to add as much vanilla extract as their heart desired. Mother scribbled “teaspoon” off all her recipe cards and wrote in “a heaping pinch.”
And Oma’s brownies still tasted the same.
-
When my mother packed up all the cups and half cups and emptied out the messy kitchen drawer that was home to mismatched sets of measures, I had already become an eager student of Oma’s way of shrugging and cooking, and feeling the weight of the ingredients in my hand. A pile of flour in my palm was standard for one recipe, and for another, I scooped only a fragile tower of it on the ledge of my fingers. Oil was measured by counting the seconds of the pour, like a bartender, but I think Oma, in all her austerity, skipped the last syllable in Mississippi when she counted out seconds.
In the back of the cabinet, I hid a kitschy shot glass. The logo of some casino hotel had almost completely worn from it, but it was the perfect measure for recipes I hadn’t mastered by feel yet.
Only Oma’s food stayed consistent. My bakes and gravies and stews seemed to be beholden to the alignment of the stars, but they were always passable, always edible, always salvageable. Close enough.
-
We didn’t have a kitchen scale, but our neighbors did. They turned it in.
My mother stayed home because there was nothing to pack up, nothing left to turn in or empty out of a kitchen drawer.
And then they knocked on the door and explained they had come for the bathroom scale.
-
Despite high levels of compliance among civilians, the Committee reports that the forfeiture of devices for standard measures has made little dent in the ongoing drug crisis. In a briefing today, the Committee recommended an edict for the voluntary forfeiture of all thermometers, thermostats, and other devices used to measure temperature. They hope that this will prevent the manufacture of drugs by...
And the food got really bad, for a while. My mother didn’t have the strength to pry the oven out from the kitchen wall and drag it through the streets, though she did try. The oven was askew in the kitchen, only a step away from the wall when she finally called the police to come seize it for her. They smashed the digital display above the stovetop and cracked open the back to clip the thermostat wires. It was a gas stove, so it still worked but the temperature was anybody’s guess.
Oma fretted for a while until a neighbor brought over steamed bread. Then, we were back in the kitchen, mixing flour and eggs and water as usual, scooping with our hands and measuring with our hearts.
“The thing is,” Oma mused, pouring batter into little ramekins that she set in our new steamer basket, “we’ll never burn them this way. Boiling water is always a hundred degrees, and the steam, too…”
I bit my lip.
Degrees. A measure.
“You’re not supposed to say that.”
She shrugged and clicked her tongue.
“That’s just how it is.”
-
For today’s weather, we turn to the Committee’s daily weather report. It is currently a cool sixty-eight degrees outside, and the Committee is happy to report that we are finally dipping back into cooler, historical global temperatures. They remind all home farmers with Patriot Gardens that rain will be coming this week.
I wiped the sweat off my cheeks with one damp washcloth before handing another to Oma. Cicadas were screaming and grass outside had gone to straw.
“There’s no way...it can’t be sixty-eight it so... hot.”
Oma took the washcloth from me and continued fanning herself with a paper fan while the news reporter prattled on under the sound of the summer cicadas.
“Now you’re measuring with your heart.”
***
N.V. Hudson is a chemist in New York. Outside of the lab, they can be found foraging for flowers in the woods or snoozing with their cat.