Sauerkraut

Instructed by my mother to feed the cats, I would push the door open, inch by inch, watching the sliver of light from the kitchen stab into the darkness, waiting for it to widen gradually into a triangle across the floor, bright enough to reassure me that nothing was going to attack my hand as it darted through the gap to flip on the light switch inside the garage. For a month every year, our garage changed from a dark and hazardous clutter of bikes, chainsaws, and gardening equipment to a truly terrifying place. Even in daylight I avoided the place, but when obliged to enter—such as when forced to feed the cats (whom I’d gladly have let starve), or if I really needed a bike or a skateboard—I kept a keen eye on the cinder block and plank shelves at the back, where malevolent orange enamel pots burped with sinister unpredictability. Days went by. Cobwebs formed (the better to ensnare the cats). Whenever I might show the slightest hint of getting on familiar terms with this horror—of letting down my guard—the pots would burp again, the lids would clatter, the cats would scatter, trailing cobwebs into the attic, and I would fly to my mother’s legs and cling to them so tightly that she’d shriek in alarm. My reward for surviving? A measured respect for the mysteries of fermentation and a tangy mound of steaming sauerkraut bedded with boiled Polish and German sausages. It was worth it.