Happiness in The Kitchen

I love to bake.  I can’t really cook worth a darn, but baking – YES!!  Cookies, cakes, pies, and muffins… basically anything that chocolate can be attached to, I can do.  There is a direct cause and effect happening because I do enjoy the succulent treats just as much afterward as I enjoy the process of making them.  There is something quite satisfying in making something with your hands that you can (if you really have to) share with others.

The learning process started when I was young and my mom guided me with her kitchen anecdotes and baking wisdom.  She was the master – I was the able-bodied assistant who saw not only the beauty but also the science in what we were doing.  The memories of my first bite of cookie dough infuse me still with its sweetness and sticky texture saturating my taste buds.  Reminiscences of the aromas that filled our kitchen leave me heady with anticipation of my next culinary adventure and hopes that I can try to duplicate the sensorial events of the past my mind so vividly recollects.  Being in the kitchen, early on, taught me that baking not only satisfied the senses but was also a place of solace for my sanity and where the measurements, process and results eased my soul.

The kitchen is my retreat, a place where I know where everything is, a location that I have a perceived power – and baking is my weapon.  I can bake when I am happy or sad, for an occasion or not, follow a recipe or make one up, early in the morning or late at night, if I have one hour or six to putz around… and I don’t even have to leave the house.  In a world where success is measured by taking someone’s word for it, baking rates up there with gardening in tangible gratification.  A tranquility of sorts takes over when you bring 15 different ingredients together in synchronization for a common cause.  Victory is considered in the taste and not always in the appearance (which is a good thing because some of the stuff I have made looks like something the cat dragged in).

Sharing the kitchen experience can also be a time for bonding in the family. It is in our house… I bake and my studley-do-right and darling son are the designated tasters. As my mom handed down the finer points of cookery to me, my husband, in his glory, is handing down his version of gastronomic pleasure to our son.  His dad passed on his talents to him and now the cycle repeats.  I have found that this task in only helpful if you have a masticator with discerning taste buds. My honey bunny eats anything and everything so his critical evaluation is corrupted.  The honesty of my child can be somewhat numbing – but I keep in mind that he is just a babe with burgeoning taste buds and that I am merely a stepping stone in the quest to help form a life long talent that he will then pass on to my grandchildren (see how easily a mom can justify something that hopefully is 25 years away?).  Thumbs up or down on a concoction, I persist in pulling recipes from magazines or foraging Internet baking sites in the quest of the perfect baked fantasy.  Someday I will find it and in the mean time have much fun searching and testing each and every recipe that has delectable ingredients or a great picture of an indulgence that calls for me to try to duplicate.

Thanks mom for getting me started on this fabulous life-long journey (and the extra 20 pounds that I carry around that verify that I am earnest in my quest).  I will always remember that a pint is a pound the world around, that I should season to “taste” and real butter only makes sense.  If someday I can give to my son all you gave to me, including the baking gene, I will be able to call my life a success.  (In loving memory of the 6th anniversary of my mom’s death to cancer)

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life. Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-