Go Bake with Ward!

“Hey, let’s bake something!” you say, and Ward perks up at your suggestion.

“I haven’t done that in a while,” she says. “Have you got a favourite recipe you’d like to do?”

“Depends on what you’ve got stocked up,” you say.

“To the kitchen then!” Ward says. She springs up to her feet, and the two of you make your way over to the kitchen, a place that looks less tidy than the spotless cooking area that you’re used to at home. There’s a couple dishes in the sink, some tupperware lying about—all told, not terrible; just a little messier than you might expect.

“Here’s the pantry,” she says, pointing out the obvious, “and you can take a look at the fridge, too.”

A quick inspection reveals that the essentials for baking—flour, eggs, that kind of thing—are all in good supply, so you turn over the things she has available in your head… there isn’t any vanilla or chocolate chips, which eliminates two of the things that you do know how to make.

“Have you ever made Lemon Meringue pie?” Ward suddenly pipes up. She’s got a sack of lemons in her hand.

“What were you planning to do with all those lemons?” you ask. There must be two dozen in there!

“Good question,” she laughs, hefting it a bit. “It was on sale at Trader Joe’s, and I thought to myself that I should probably use more lemons in my cooking and one thing led to another… in short, I am not a very rational consumer.”

“Nah, I think you were being plenty rational,” you say. “After all, you knew that you’d need to make Lemon Meringue pie for the whole class, and so you got this many lemons!”

“I kind of like that idea! We’re baking for the whole class now,” Professor Ward says, giving you a glowing smile. “The only issue is that Lemon Meringue pie’s kind of a hard one to make. You ever tried it?”

“I’ve tried eating it,” you say. “It’s damn delicious.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Ward laughs. She pulls out her phone and looks something up. “Ah! Here it is! The lemon bar recipe that I like! Much simpler to make, and probably easier to share in class, too.”

She passes her phone over to you, and you give the recipe a one over. It looks manageable, and more importantly—delicious! You subconsciously lick your lips, and the notice that Ward is looking closely at you.

“Yeah… looks good!” you say, giving her back the phone.

“I’ll preheat the oven then,” she says, after taking a second to get out all the ingredients that you’ll need. “I don’t have enough pans to fit the amount that we’re planning to make, so we’ll have to shift some over to the tupperware after each batch.”

“Awesome!” you say and she beams at you. Funny, how much less intimidating Dr. Valerie Ward is when she’s in a good mood.

The two of you get to stirring away, blending butter and flour and sugar, juicing lemons, chatting away about your life and hers as Madvillainy plays softly in the background. You discover that she got her doctorate at Schmarvard (apparently, the kids there are as stuck-up as the mythos would have it) and that she once dreamed of being a physicist (apparently, some ex of hers talked her out of it, and apparently, that’s the only good thing he ever did for her); she finds out that you broke up with your ex heading into college (apparently, you made the right decision, as the only long distance relationship that she was in ended with the guy punching a hole through his laptop screen), and that you are not, in fact, planning to be an economics major (apparently, she was so absorbed in her research that she didn’t realise she was teaching an intro class for non-majors, too. That explains some of why the shit she’s been throwing at you’s been so difficult).

“Huh,” Valerie says, leaning back as she places a freshly baked pan of lemon bars on the counter. They glisten a moist yellow, topped with a delicious white crust of sugar and lemoniness, and she takes a knife and quickly cuts two pieces, passing one to you. With a mouth full of lemon-bar, she continues: “Maybe I should—mmph! This is so good!—go easier on you guys?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” you say, talking carefully to avoid spilling the mouthful of the baked goodness you’ve just bitten. “And if you could, you know, put in a good word from me when you announce that you’ve made the class easier…”

“Ah, who am I kidding,” she laughs. “I’ll just let you kids struggle for now and curve the class afterwards. I think you learn better that way.”

“Hey, that won’t work now that you’ve revealed your strategy,” you say. “We’ll all just work less hard, and get curved to the same grade as we would have gotten otherwise.”

“Solve that coordination game, and you lot all deserve As,” she laughs. She pauses for a second, thinking. “But hey, maybe I will go through with it. Ready for the next batch?”

“Careful, Valerie, you’re going to have us all wanting detention if you keep this up,” you say, sneaking another lemon bar into your mouth.

“Too bad for the rest of them, then,” she replies, “because only you’re going to be invited, Alex.”

You leave her house a couple hours later, right around 4 in the afternoon, having gorged yourself on a few more lemon bars than would, strictly speaking, be considered healthy. The pleasant fullness you feel in your stomach is complemented by the warmth you feel inside after talking with Valerie Ward about life and love, and best… Best? Yes, best of all, she’s even invited you back to detention next week!

Ward +15