I used to spend my spring months teaching at Nerd Camp, where 52 people read and write while living on a lake in the woods of Maine. Deep in our Walden-like seclusion, the sound of a delivery truck often felt like a vulgar intrusion. But one day Becky, the Kitchen Queen of Nerd Camp, greeted its heavy rumble with an unusual excitement.
Francis would like us to make clear that he doesn't actually
look like a lamb. But if that's really the case, we're forced to
wonder: What's with the homonym, Mr. Lam?
The gate opened and out came the usual supplies: bacon, eggs, bacon, frozen peas, bacon, yet another 24 pounds of margarine for the lone vegan we had that year, bacon. But then, there it was: red and white and shiny, a whole case of sweetened condensed milk.
My knees buckled a little bit. Why? Because sweetened condensed milk is the BOMB, that’s why.
Just listen to the sound of it: sweetened condensed milk. Say that three times slow. It’s a poetry all its own, the words sounding exactly like what it is: sugary, thick, and sticky. It’s world-wide all-purpose yum.
Here, we use it as the magic in magic bars. The Vietnamese stir it into their dark, chicory-blended coffee for one of the world’s great drinks, so full-bodied and luscious it can double as dessert. The Colombians spoon it over fresh fruits and shaved ice for cholados, a treat that is either a virtuous ice cream or a naughty fruit salad. And when I was a kid, in true Hong Kong style, my parents used to make tea sandwiches by spreading it on slices of buttered, crustless white bread.
But most often in the Nerd Camp kitchens, in between discussions of The Idea of Order at Key West and murmurings about a late-night lake jump, our cans of sweetened condensed milk could be heard bubbling away in big pots of water, the heat and pressure inside the aluminum alchemizing the good stuff into even better stuff: dulce de leche.
Oh, there are all kinds of uses for this caramelized goodness, but there, deep in the wee hours with our heads full of words and bellies full of coffee, we would just crack open the cans and dive in spoons and fingers first.
For a program with a strict drug-free policy, our love of sweetened condensed milk skirted close to dependency, until one night a student came glumly back from the pantry, her hands empty. At first, we denied it. "No, really, take a better look." Then, unmoored, we despaired. There was wailing. And, in the end, we remembered our Dickinson: Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.
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