Baking as Therapy

I've noticed that as my sisters and I have worked through the holidays without my mom this year, we've had a common pursuit. That is, we've all been baking! Mom was a wonderful cook, and she could make just about anything, but she excelled at baking and making treats. We've been keeping her close by making her specialties, as well as a few of our own.

It started with cookie day back in November, which was a makeup for our annual October cookie day that got spoiled by swine flu.

Since then between me and my sisters we've made a whole bunch of holiday recipes including:

Carrot Cake
English Toffee
Gingerbread Houses
Peanut Squares
Peanut Butter Cookies
Brownies
Gingersnaps
Gingerbread snowflakes
Pound cake

Both my sister Annie and I had gingerbread disasters that ended up in shattered gingerbread, and a few tears. In my case, I was grateful that the nervous breakdown over the gingerbread house happened on Christmas Eve, because I had it out of my system before Christmas Day. My gingerbread house took over 7 hours to create and ended in a shattered pile of gingerbread, Necco wafers, ribbon candy, and royal icing on the kitchen floor at the end of that. The toffee split and ended up in a pool of congealed butter. My peanut squares were too thin, and Sally's were too thick. Along the way, we've missed being able to call mom and ask her a question so we've learned by trial and error. Do the eggs really need to be room temperature? (Answer, for carrot cake no, for royal icing, yes.) How long does it take for this toffee to reach the right temperature? (Answer, 20 million years during which you must keep stirring constantly or it splits).

Happily, the carrot cake was just right, another batch of toffee worked out perfectly, Annie glued her gingerbread house back together and secured it with Triscuits. The front half of my Victorian gingerbread house hit the dirt, but the back looked okay, so we turned it around. My brother pronounced his sisters "Best Sisters Ever" for making every cookie on his Christmas cookie list. And somehow, we made it through Christmas without mom physically here, although we felt she was somehow close.

For some, cooking is a Zen pursuit, in my family, at least this holiday season, it's been more of an extreme sport where we've experienced both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The gingerbread is in pieces, but there were a few moments, stirring away at that toffee, that not having to think of anything but that task at that moment was peaceful.