Results tagged "Baking and Confections"

For a rather significant part of my life I have resisted the acknowledgment of my birthday, which is a not only totally lame but also wreaks of complete and total hypocrisy…
 
Because just like everyone else, I think I might want my birthday to be acknowledged… Just ever so slightly. When you are a kid, there isn’t anything like an awesome birthday… and then you get older. And for years during my 20s & 30s I have been completely like… Oh blah blah blah, just another day… yadda yadda – whatevs… AND I would painfully believe myself. Walking around draped in denial… wondering WHO KNOWS and when/if they are going to do something about it. I would often attempt to remove my birth date from office calendars — dreading the uncomfortable and TOTALLY unnecessary office birthday party… I mean why?

I can remember one year, when I worked in an office with very few other women (mentioned here) who would all gather in a tiny closed up office with no windows and exchange cards, cake and every once in a while… gifts. This was not only torture, but also stood tall among double faced ladies that would pry, spew gossip and then end up cackling away while stabbing you in the back.. did you hear what Bob said to JIM’S WIFE?! It was harsh and rather intimidating. I spent one birthday in this arena where they gave me a card and a coconut cake… Coconut, by law, is only allowed to enter my body covered in chocolate in the guise of an Almond Joy… So, while I was trying not to gag on the white fibers of death, I opened the card to find a mostly NAKED MAN along with some cheesy line like… “Having a really hard time believing it’s your birthday”… as they all died laughing, grabbing the card away from me to inspect the centerfold in depth…. totally pleased with themselves in having made me embarrassed and uncomfortable, while I turned a nice fire engine red. Bashful to have shared this moment among almost strangers and not my good friends — with whom, it might have been really funny.

A few years ago I sent a card to one of my oldest and dearest friends that now lives on the west coast. It was a great illustration of a bunch of birthday candles running away from a cake… Gabriella is older than me… a whole bunch of 13 days older. In our history together we have shared many birthdays avoiding our birthdays… acknowledging them… nodding in agreement that we don’t really like them very much and then going on our ways… When her birthday popped up on my calendar this year, I looked to find a card to beat the running candles, which sent me into a tizzy of missing her enormously. I couldn’t find one. And so,  while I do find comfort that she, among others, are only an email, text or Facebook message away–what with phones becoming so ten minutes ago n-all…  And that the world appears to still be getting smaller, I hope that you’ll share a piece of virtual cake with me today. Because I’m finding it really hard to believe…

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I am a lot of things.

But one thing that I am not is patient. And I am finally admitting it. For years people have asked me to just be patient. Years. And I always say – I AM. But it’s true, I AM NOT. Which is why I have decided to write this post. Because if I make one more failed recipe out of the allergy baking cookbook – - bought specifically for the intention of spinning me into the non-allergen Betty Crocker  — all dairy, egg and nut free — I might just pull a Spinal Tap and SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST. I know… WHY am I so stressed out? Who CARES about the dollars upon dollars of ingredients that have been WASTED – trying my patience for all things HARD TO DO anyway! And how do I know that I might blowup? Because the recipes ARE ALL WRONG. And I’m really tired of trying.

I pre-ordered this cookbook. I was in touch with the author — who I thought was super savvy and nice. I connected with her about marketing ideas and agreed to write a review here and on Will’s Kitchen. I told her that I COULDN’T WAIT until the book was published. But now — as I am OVERWHELMINGLY tempted to type her name — I realize how NAIVE I must have been. IT WAS ALL A ROUSE. And Why? WHY would you publish a cookbook in which NONE of the recipes are accurate? Is it because you WANT me to rewrite ALL of them for you? Would you like to come over and see all of the bread loaves that DID NOT RISE? Or attempt to bite into the cookies THAT WILL BREAK YOUR TEETH? Do you know how hot 450° is? And what about the typos? EDIT MUCH? And what if I contact you, and let you know how we have tried and failed to make every single concoction in your half-baked science experiment — then would you somehow explain how you intend to FIX things? Print a retraction for every misplace tablespoon? Or, I could call you and you’d be all “Oh, so lovely to hear from you” and I’d be like “YOU ARE A LIAR and A CHEAT”. But what is to gain from my being mean? And if patience is a virtue, it must be that FAKING IT is too, because ADMIT IT. Not only are you taking advantage of EVERYONE, smiling on the cover — taunting those of us that FELL FOR IT, but you are also taking us to the bank — one to twelve bags of wheat flour at a time.

Whew.
And now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, the completely unrelated to this post news of the week is that I’ve gone back to writing for Artistic Things — you can find me there NOT baking or talking about baking… or patience.. until one of those pesky arty folkheads starts lying about being an artist. Because that’s what people do these days… THEY MAKE IT ALL UP. And I promise I will get over all of this soon.   

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