The Parable of the Pastry Chef's Wife

        Josh lives.  Josh walks.  Josh breathes.  Josh speaks. 

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, “The official second inauguration of the first African-American president falls on the birthday of Martin Luther King.  How can the most powerful man in the world match his most powerful inheritance?  One has to surpass the other on this day.  Who should we most celebrate?”

Josh spoke thus:

There was a famous pastry chef who made delicious and beautiful birthday cakes.  He made pastries, of course, sweet and sharp raspberry tarts, elegant and creamy eclairs, jammy danishes, fluffy croissants.

His birthday cakes, though, were what made him famous.

They were elegant, his cakes.  They were light.  Their icing was as airy as lace, their fillings were as profound as Sophocles.  They were not tall, but their architecture soared.  They were not small, but their geometry was compact.

They were flavorful his cakes, and never in ways that were expected.

This one was almond, until it was maple.  That one was chocolate, before peach.  Caramel morphed to cranberry.  Apple ripened to brandy.  Each forkful was a new delight, every crumb an astonishment.

The birthday cakes of the famous pastry chef were unsurpassed.

Every year, therefore, the wife of the famous pastry chef did not welcome the birthday of the famous pastry chef.

“I will not bake you a birthday cake,” she told him every year.

“Please do not bake me a birthday cake,” he agreed every year.

But every year the wife of the famous pastry chef would bake the famous pastry chef a birthday cake.  It was her little joke for him.

And every year the birthday cake that the wife of the famous pastry chef would bake for the famous pastry chef would be a triumph.  

There would be no lace, no profundity.  The cake would be hutch low, the cake would be sometimes circular, sometimes square.

Modest chocolate flavored the cake baked by the wife of the famous pastry chef.  Humble vanilla, on occasion, replaced the chocolate.  Once, on a dare, there was coconut.  Once.  Even this ambitious cake, this coconut boast, was a bijou for the famous pastry chef.

So why, one year, was the famous pastry chef crestfallen at the introduction of a charming single-layer devil’s food?

Was the icing too rich?  The icing was not too rich.

Was the chocolate too dark?  The chocolate was not too dark.

Too moist?  Too dry?  Neither damp nor dusty.

Too gaudy?  Too plain?  Neither proud nor petty.

Why the fallen crest, then, asked the disappointed wife of the famous pastry chef.

The famous pastry chef replied, “I have always hoped for roller skates.”