A.S.S.

I would call it the Aunt Sally Syndrome, but saying all those words is so twentieth century. Think how much time can be saved by using the acronym, A.S.S. Probably before the calendars are flipped to the next century, we’ll forgo words completely and communicate by spouting off only clipped letters.

Well, back to Aunt Sally and her syndrome, actually she doesn’t have the syndrome, it’s my husband who does. Aunt Sally won’t be familiar to you unless you’ve visited or lived in New Orleans. There she is famous (if you’re skinny) or infamous (if you’re fat) for her pecan pralines, a delightful confection made of a buttery, sugary syrup. Before I go any further, let’s get one thing straight - the pronunciation. Unless you want to sound like a complete Yankee or a Brit, you must say PRAH-leens, not PRAY-leens.

It all started when my born, bred, and schooled in New Orleans husband, who just happens to be the second smartest man on Earth, was planning to concoct a NAWlin’s specialty for a dinner party. My idea for dessert was pecan pie or Breyers praline ice cream. Remembering that my best friend has a microwavable praline recipe, he said, “Why not go for the real thing?”

After the nightmare experience of making candy canes with my boys and the neighbor kids many Christmases ago, I'm convinced that candy is something to be bought, not made, so my response was, “I have a house to clean. If you want pralines, you’ll need to make them.” Right there and then, without a doubt, is the moment my husband caught ASS. The first batch came out so perfect that he made more, many more. Only running out of ingredients made him stop. Our guests loved them. Everyone wanted the recipe when he went on about how easy they were to make.

The next day, he sent me out for more supplies and containers. He wanted to make enough for one of our son's teachers . He also thought they'd make great Christmas gifts for his business associates. This shopping trip rubbed the cheap side of me the wrong way. Paying full price for something when I’d normally get it on sale and with coupons was not my MO.

Apparently the praline gods had somewhere else to be whenever he entered Round Two. It was disaster from the get-go. They were too runny, some stuck to the wax paper like Super Glue. Each batch seemed to have unique ailments. How can something that was so easy one day, be so impossible the next? Calling upon his science and physics background, he was Googling to find out where he was going wrong, why and how to fix it.

Only because he was too tired to scrap the whole bunch, and went to bed with bunches of sticky wet globs still stretched out on the wax paper (and everyplace else that he touched) did he have any to show for the additional batches he attempted. The next morning he found that some had dried and he was able to lift them off the wax paper and into the containers.

The teachers got pralines, but less than he’d planned. WWASD in a situation like this? Well, if Aunt Sally is anything like my husband, she'd remember how easy they were to make the first time and she'd wake up two days later and ask me to buy more ingredients. This time I opted out of doing the shopping. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle this painful experience a second time. When I returned from a church activity Sunday night, ASS had commandeered my kitchen again only this time he was smiling. Apparently the praline gods had returned.

Prauline Photo by Stormy Sleep