Growing up there was no baking done in our house.  None.  No cookies, no cakes.  Except during the holidays Mama would bake a frozen apple pie and when girlfriends spent the night, which was almost never, she always and without fail prepared Pepperidge Farm Puff Pasty Apple Turnovers.  But Mama had a tendency to burn things…anything…everything and these turnovers were no exception.  She had one baking sheet, an old, warped aluminum sheet covered with burnt-on stains.  I looked at them as friendly reminders of her past culinary disasters.  Saturday mornings during sleepovers Mama couldn’t “pop” the turnovers in the oven, oh no.  Everything she did was done at hyper speed, from the moment she flew out of bed in the morning until the moment she collapsed into bed at night.  As Mama slammed the baking sheet into the oven, the pastries skittering wildly about the tray, the crash of metal on metal and the slamming of the oven door could be heard down the street…or at least on our side of the house.  And as I stretched in my twin bed with its girly white lace bedskirt, I looked over at Dana/Andrea/Ann waking up in the matching twin bed with the identical bedskirt.  We always smiled knowing we could breakfast later at their house with the utmost confidence it wouldn’t be burned.  Sure enough,  Mama rapped on our door on the bedroom door with the back of her hand, her middle knuckle sounding like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun.  “Girls!  Breakfast is ready!”  I always wanted to sing back, “We know.  We smelled the smoke.” but that would have been sassy and disrespectful and Mama DID NOT tolerate any of that in her house.  No, ma’am.  She would not have batted an eye in front of anyone outside of the family, but later?  Holy Mary, mother of Jesus!  She was liable to wash your mouth out with an enormous, white bar of Ivory soap AND ground you.  Uh uh.   Don’t sass Mama.  Anyway, in our soft blue or pastel pink baby doll nighties off we’d saunter into the kitchen to find a bowl of freshly cut fruit, cold glasses of milk and a gorgeous platter of beautifully arranged turnovers, the pastries were all puffed up with layers of crunchy sweetness.  Sadly, the bottom  of each and every turnover was a solid, black charred mess.  Every.Single.Time.  Without speaking, we’d peel off and enjoy the tops which hadn’t burned and scrape the apple and nut goo on the bottoms with spoons while the exhaust fan roared in the background sucking out the smoke. That was the closest Mama came to baking apples and pastry and we were fine with it.  When you’re twelve or thirteen you know when life is good and our lives were good.  Good and rich with Mama’s love!