A Culinary Charade

The aroma of yeast and something vaguely… burnt, wafted from Leo’s tiny bakery, a scent that usually made Elara’s stomach rumble with anticipation. Today, however, it filled her with a dread that curdled her breakfast. She peered through the streaked glass, her regal nose practically pressed against the pane. Inside, Leo, bless his earnest, flour-dusted heart, was wrestling with a contraption that looked less like an oven and more like a medieval torture device. He was attempting to create churros. For her. Because, in his charmingly befuddled mind, her desperate, often tearful, Spanish pronouncements about *“¡churros, por favor, los churros dorados y crujientes!”* translated to a complex baking challenge.

She’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried. The previous day, in a moment of sheer desperation, she’d pointed emphatically at a picture of a churro in a discarded newspaper, then at her mouth, then made a frantic, wiggly motion with her fingers, hoping to convey the desired shape. Leo had nodded sagely, his eyes sparkling with what she’d hoped was understanding, but now, looking at his current efforts, she suspected he’d interpreted her frantic gestures as a demonstration of a particularly enthusiastic dance move.

He emerged from the smoky interior, wiping his brow with the back of a floury hand. In his other hand, he held a tray. On the tray were… things. They were vaguely tubular, certainly golden-hued, but that’s where any resemblance to a churro ended. They were lumpy, some were flat and wide like miniature pancakes, others were puffed up and misshapen like overinflated balloons. A few had peculiar green flecks embedded in them. Broccoli? Elara shuddered.