Seaglass: The smell and taste of Self-renewal

This is a gratitude post, gratitude for so many things I take for granted: family, friends, health, food, and most of all, time.

Over the last few months, the world as most of us know it has been turned on its axis in ways unimaginable to us. There is so much uncertainty about the future and how life will change, as it already has in so many ways.

The thing I am most grateful for is time, to pause in a hurried life, time to get back to some things that bring me joy, time to connect with friends and family; time for long phone calls; time to tend to my garden. And mostly, time to bake.

I wrote a piece over 13 years ago about my love for baking and cooking. After re-reading it yesterday, I thought I would post it here (acknowledgement at the end of the post).

Seaglass

As a young child growing up in Guyana, I watched my mother in fascination as she read her cookbooks from Britain and created fancy cakes, pastries and other assortment of goodies. She also made excellent Indian cuisine, which was a puzzle for me, because she never used recipes, and the food always turned out great.

My own childhood curiosity led me to experiment with her cookbooks, which she only seemed to collect but not use. While most kids played outside, I spent hours poring over recipes I thought sounded interesting, and I planned how much time I would need to complete the task before my mom came home.

I secretly marked the page, and waited for her to say that she was going out somewhere, at which time, I would hurriedly gather my ingredients for my creations and start baking. By the time my mom came home, the kitchen was clean, and I had my cookies proudly displayed on the table.

I even managed to convince my helpers – mostly my sister, brother and my best friend next door – to do some of the prep work and the cleanup. Beyond being convenient, they were also my taste testers of the end product. I would whip, beat and mix as the recipe directed and come up with my cake, donut, cookie or bread.

By age ten, I had mastered many recipes and had graduated to altering recipes. My specialty was bread, which I baked every weekend, for us, for my aunt next door, and for my grandparents who lived a few miles away,, who had their delivered by me or my brother.

My confidence grew so much, that I wanted to master cooking without recipes, much like my mother did. There were some disasters which my father was always willing to eat, a sign of encouragement I suppose, but some of it must have tasted awful.

Of course there were the ones that were ruined and too embarrassing to show, so they were quickly buried in the backyard under the bushes. I eventually concluded that some recipes had to be precise and there was little room for manipulating ingredients when baking.

When I had my children, I directed my love of cooking and baking into daily meal preparation, as a way of saving money, and also to provide healthy meals for them. Since my children could never eat as much as I wanted to bake or cook, and my freezer overflowed with goodies or ingredients for various recipes.

I directed my treats to their school bus drivers, teachers, classmates, and anyone who showed a mild interest in food (which seemingly was anyone who crossed my path), or made eye contact with me.

I became a teacher and found new audiences willing to eat my baking. Each year I had a new group of adult students, and I baked a cake for every student’s birthday.

That was a lot of cakes each year (ten in total), besides the ones for family and friends. I could turn any occasion, be it sad or happy, into a reason to bake or cook.

I got more creative with my cooking and baking, always challenging myself to find the little nuances of the food I was eating or trying to identify some secret ingredient.

I learned to experiment with recipes, substituting, revising, exchanging and adding new or different ingredients as I ventured beyond the world of the electric oven into the world of microwave, convection, and gas stoves. That was certainly a long way from the kerosene stove and oven I used as a child.

Some of my substitutions and revisions became almost scientific challenges to discover why a recipe worked or failed, and how I could alter it the next time without losing the integrity of the final product.

I became a detective about cooking, factoring in altitudes, humidity, timing, temperatures and freshness of ingredients.

Then one day, it occurred to me that the single most important thing that I had completely overlooked but could not be measured scientifically, was my mood.

I started paying attention to the times I would cook or bake and the reasons I did that. I bake for happy occasions and I bake for sad occasions. Mostly I bake and cook when I need to think, and the more thinking I have to do, the more I bake and cook.

Baking and cooking are my ways to renew my soul and re-energize me. I have something tangible to show for my effort, and sharing this bouty with others makes my burden somewhat lighter.

Somehow, the task of baking and cooking becomes so much more than an end product. The look and smell of a cinnamon coffee cake or lemon biscotti soothes my soul and makes me feel that no matter the burden, circumstance or event, the sweet smell of my baking and the love I put into my creations makes me feel better.

More than 45 years has passed since I first remembered cooking something in my mom’s kitchen. What started as childhood curiosity, has grown into so much more than art or science.

I’ve fed a lot of friends, family, students and strangers over the years and I hope to be remembered remembered for the cakes, pies and breads I’ve created.

The therapeutic nature of baking has become a way for me to renew myself, and each day I find another reason to celebrate life.

Sometimes I spend alone time in my kitchen with my thoughts and I embrace the solitude. Some baking takes concentration and others I can make while I think about something else.

There are times I need to work out a solution to some problem I’m dealing with and even if I don’t come up with a solution, I have my baking as evidence of accomplishment.

There are times I share my kitchen with family and friends and it’s noisy and chaotic. But the result is always the same. The sense of rejuvenation is indicative of a contentment that is hard to explain, but if you love to cook, you’ll understand.

Cooking and baking for the pleasure of it and to clear the mind. Best therapy for self-renewal. Best elixir for rejuvenation. Biscotti anyone? Coffee cake? Multigrain bread? Call me for your care package!