Like many Jewish mothers, I like to bake.

My sister does, too, and my grandmother, master mandelbrot baker, before us (it skipped a generation, though — the aisles shelving anything requiring measuring cups were the ones my mother would rush past in the grocery store).

Unlike cooking, which stresses me out, baking relaxes me.

On weekends, I often bake for the kids; chewy oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies are the most popular.

For my husband, who doesn’t eat gluten, I have a small repertoire of goodies: brownies, butter cookies, pumpkin doughnuts. I usually stock rice, tapioca, gram, quinoa, and a mix of flours.

Guests are my guinea pigs; I might try out a chocolate banana tahina cake recipe, or salted chocolate-chip tahini cookies, or make a tart French apple cake, which has become a Rosh Hashanah staple in our house.

This summer, I was neither cooking nor baking. We finally went to Canada to visit our families, having been unable to go since 2019 thanks to strict Covid rules. We spent a month away, blissfully enjoying time on the lake at my in-laws’ cottage and in my sister’s swimming pool.

At some point, my cleaner, back in the UK, sent me a video of my pantry.

“Not to alarm you, but there are lots of little bugs here,” she texted. I watched the video. A few teeny-tiny bugs scurried by —nothing to lose sleep over.

“Thanks for getting rid of them,” I wrote back, and then, carefree, I took another swig of the summer-perfect drink my sister prepared for me. One minute later, the video was forgotten.

Cue my return to England. THE HORROR. THE HORROR. My house —not just my pantry, the entire ground floor of MY HOUSE — was infested with weevils.

The cupboard shelves heaved with them. They ran across the floor. They congregated on door frames. They lazed on countertops. They mounted walls.

What to do? I began sucking them up with my Dyson, but the canister is clear, and I could see them partying inside.

No good. They were just biding their time and would return to my kitchen floor the second I walked away.

I tried a new tactic, ripping off paper towel after paper towel and scooping them up (they’re slow and stupid) and throwing them away. For good measure, I poured some white vinegar over their heads. Then, exhausted, I collapsed in my reading chair…and watched one crawl up the armrest.

To work! I read every website available about weevils, which apparently are harmless (thank goodness!), enter the house in bags of grain and are usually discovered in situ.
I proceeded to throw out everything— every bag of flour, rice, quinoa, wheat germ, psyllium husk, hemp seeds, yeast flakes, sugar, potato starch, corn starch… Hundreds of pounds in the bin.

I washed every bottle and tin with soap and water. The shelves were scrubbed, wiped down with vinegar and sprinkled with bay leaves. All the while, the mass murder of weevils in my house continued unabated.


Numbers are significantly down. But the critters are still here, and I am obsessed with getting every last one.

The rest of my family, however, seem weirdly unbothered.

When my son Lucas ran downstairs with blood pouring out of his nose, my husband marched off to help him carrying an entire roll of paper towel. Um, hello? That’s my weapon? I can’t share it!

And this morning, my son Jasper laughed at me, saying, “Calm down, Mama!”

“Jasper,” I responded, “Do you know that a female weevil can lay four eggs every day? For each one you miss now, there could be five tonight, nine tomorrow, 13 the next day… But wait. That doesn’t take into account that they multiply exponentially. Because each baby could have four babies a day and each of their babies, and each of theirs…”

My 15-year-old son looked at me with the wisdom of the ages. “Then we’re screwed,” he announced.

I give myself two more days to emerge victorious in this turf war between me and the little guys, and if not, I’m calling the exterminator. So, our house will be covered in poison. Better than weevils.

As for my French apple cake, I’ll be honest: we might have to celebrate Rosh Hashanah this year without it. I don’t know if I can ever bake again.