Molasses On Snow(Martha Huett) The sudden, mandatory travel orders, which usually led to some of the most thrilling and historically significant culinary discoveries of all time, left the galaxy's most revered gastronomy research historian with unexpected trepidation. Perhaps 'trepidation' is the wrong word; it was more like she was scared witless.

Based on the planet Earth, Professor Emeritus of Galactic Gastronomy and Head of Historical Gastronomic Research at the University of Uganda in Africa, Dr. Ginger Barrientos was no slouch. And she wasn't afraid of time-travel technology, either. The big problem, she knew, was a displaced sense of nostalgia: Dr. Barrientos unabashedly loved the American West frontier, especially the mid- to late 1800s.

She pulled up her personal holoscreen and read her travel orders again...

MISSION: Infiltrate the historical time frame of the fictional old Earth TV show, "Little House on the Prairie"; Initiate protocol to collect and retrieve samples of all gastronomy related materials.
DESTINATION: Walnut Grove, Minnesota, former United States of America, circa 1871AD
COORDINATES: 44°13′30″N 95°28′09″W
PURPOSE: To historically retrofit and archive
ingredients and dishes of recipes specific to the time/place of "Little House on the Prairie"
DATE: 24.12.2124
TIME: 04:00
PLACE: TT Chamber/ UofU Quantum Launch Lab
FUNDING: approved and secured

The final reading of the orders torpedoed her excitement and solidified her greatest fearful truth. Dr Ginger Barrientos felt she couldn't trust herself. Nope, she just couldn't be trusted to ever come back. And for this, she was afraid. She loved her partner and grown kids, her home and even the environment, in spite of its sterility and artificiality.

In a way, it was kind of easy to see why Dr. Barrientos, a true-to-gods foodie and history buff, wouldn't want to come back to her 22nd century world. In spite of the fact that the inhabitants of Earth now enjoyed peace, prosperity and sustainability, Dr. Barrientos yearned to breathe air that wasn't artificial, to walk on real grass, to smell a real flower. Most of all, she dreamed of eating real meals made from real ingredients grown out of real biological dirt and made with real human hands. That was what she wanted for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Daily.

See, one day, many years ago when Ginger was still a toddler, her mom plopped her down in front of the home's holoscreen to watch a cute, ancient 'history' show. Her mom, a good hard-working, fully-loving mother, was keen to finish a long-awaited dissertation on quantum entanglement for her third doctorate and did not tell young Ginger that the show was historically-based fiction.

Ginger marathon-watched "Little House on the Prairie" that week. It was about a family who upon moving in a covered wagon to the American Midwest in the late 1800s, lived, loved and struggled as a pioneer unit. Every episode revealed a dilemma the family resolved through love, forgiveness, determination and family values. Ginger fell in love with the town, Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and with the horses and buckboards, and with Ma and Pa Ingalls, but especially with the little girls of the olden TV family, Mary and Laura. She admired how the indomitable Laura, through her cleverness and kindness, usually got her way. Ginger watched throughout the days, and even as a toddler, into the nights. She had over-ridden her mother's orders, and manually instructed the robo sitter to interrupt her only for potty and snack breaks.

Ginger quickly became enamored with the Ingalls family's meals on the TV show. Her fascination with hand-prepared dishes of 19th century Earth budded and bloomed with every hand-grown and hand-picked ingredient used to create them. To a 22nd century toddler living in a highly robotized and AI society, meal preparation looked like putting puzzle pieces together in a game. It was fun! Young Ginger watched and learned how to make Johnny-cakes and sourdough biscuits, rhubarb pie and angel food cake, dumplings and root vegetables bake, butting and topping beans, even candling eggs.

The next week Ginger asked her mom if she could go to Walnut Grove, Minnesota when she was old enough to time-travel. She really wanted to meet 6-year-old Laura Ingalls in person at her little house on the prairie. Not having the heart to disappoint her only child, the mom, looking into her precious daughter's sweet, hopeful face, said, "Maybe one day, cariña!"

That day had come, finally, for Dr. Ginger Barrientos. She showed up at the university's quantum launch lab at precisely 4:00 am. She told herself, scolded herself, over and over, that she was a sensible professional who would follow through on her mission. She WOULD come back. After all, Laura Ingalls and "Little House on the Prairie" were all make-believe, right?

Nevertheless, when the time travel technicians entered the coordinates and calibrations, then pressed 'Launch', a scene of Laura Ingalls stretched deeply and thoroughly into the core of Dr. Barrientos's mind; Laura was making candy with molasses and snow during a Minnesotan winter. Her brain's concentrated activity combined with the time/reality function of the travel waves and skewed the real destination.

Snow. Real snow was falling on her face and she could hear Laura saying, "Ma was busy all day long, cooking good things for Christmas… One morning she boiled molasses and sugar together until they made a thick syrup, and Pa brought in two pans of clean, white snow from outdoors. Me and Mary each had a pan, and Pa and Ma showed us how to pour the dark syrup in little streams on to the snow. They made circles, and curlicues, and 'squiggledy' things, and these hardened at once and were candy. Me and Mary might eat one piece each, but the rest was saved for Christmas Day.”

Dr. Ginger Barrientos was once again a little 6-year-old girl. Standing upright near the Ingalls barn, she kept her eyes closed and faced skyward in utter astonishment. Sure, the snow was remarkable, soft and stinging, but it was the proximity of Laura's voice that left her stunned. For she knew the reason would lead to all sorts of research into time travel and brain activity, thus leading the upcoming 23rd century scientists towards the development of a new and extremely popular reality-travel craze.

Laura Ingalls was speaking directly at ear-level because they were now the same height. Yet, Dr. Barrientos still retained the mind of a middle-aged 140-year-old woman (her actual 22nd century Earth age).

"Fantastic!" she thought and made an instant and unbreakable decision. Ginger ran as any six-year-old would back to the return launch pad hidden in the barn's loft. She quickly changed the return trip date for the following day, 25.12.2124, and re-adjusted it for an indefinite number of return trips in the future.

"Ginger! Ginger! C'mon, we're going to make some more Molasses On Snow candy. You wanna help?" Laura cried from outside the barn.

Dr. Ginger Barrientos, known simply as Ginger to the Ingalls family, grew up on their Minnesota farm in 19th century, studied in Chicago, became a renowned horticulturalist, returned to Walnut Grove, married and raised bees (real ones, not those dreary drones). She passed at the extraordinary age of 88 Earth years.

The time-travel return launch, however, made a trip every year on Christmas Day from 1871 to 1953. Each year, sneaking to the barn's loft since the age of six, Dr. Ginger Barrientos had transported back a special dish made from fresh, natural, organic Terran ingredients. She also sent updates on her reality-travel, hoping to assuage their anger on her not showing up. And because the arrival date was always the same on December 25, 2124, exactly 82 updates and 82 perfectly prepared dishes arrived at the same time. She hoped that the team would be happy and hungry.

And that in the 22nd century, they would like the old-fashioned Molasses On Snow candy as much as she did in 1871.

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