I blame my grandmother.  She’s the one who taught me that cookies, pies, and cakes can be expressions of love.  It’s her fault that I love a good homemade baked anything. 

And while I’m spreading blame around, let’s implicate my mom, too.  And all the moms of the kids I went to grade school with who sent dozens of cupcakes to school on their kids’ birthdays, and the principal who authorized bake sales, and my aunts and older cousins’ wives who brought gooey brownies and sticky pineapple upside down cakes to family reunion picnics.

Why do we teach children to love such sadistic concoctions of sugar, flour, butter, and eggs?  Standing fully clad on the scale in the doctor’s office wondering why I wore such heavy jewelry and jeans, I want to grab the nurse by the shoulders and exclaim, “They knew not what they did!”  

I’ve pretty much been on a diet since I was fifteen years old—counting calories, thinking constantly about the amount and quality of the food I put in my mouth.  As I advance into middle age, I’ve gotten a little tired of tracking and monitoring.  I’ve started to wonder if there’s a way to have my cake and eat it too.  I’ve started to wonder if there’s a way to make peace with craving because I’m realizing that what I crave the most is peace and self-acceptance.

Baked goodies, or any kind of food, have never been the problem.  It’s my desire to run from an inner agitation that needs soothing.  It’s anxiety, downright fidgetiness, boredom, resistance, pressure, and/or impatience that drives me sometimes to inhale cookie after cookie without really tasting it.

It’s emptiness, neediness that goes deeper than physical hunger. 

And I have to admit, my grandmother never taught me to inhale my food or overeat.  She taught me to enjoy the process and to take my time.  She woke early in the morning to bake because she thought leavening worked better then.  She taught me to sift the dry ingredients, to chill the dough, to use a spoon and a knife to shape cookies, and to reshape and sugar the trimmings of pie crust for an extra treat. 

She taught me that cookies, cakes, and pies were for sharing with people you love.  And the number of people she loved kept her baking all the time. 

Baked goods alone don’t provide the magic.  There are other ingredients, intangibles that don’t get included on recipe cards. There’re what all the grandmothers, mothers, and aunties have been trying to teach us with every wax paper lined tin, every buttered pan, every perfectly iced cake and sprinkled cookie. 

Confections only satisfy soul needs when they’re accompanied by the feeling that the person who made them cherishes you and the certainty that not only the recipe, but the love will carry on.

-Radiance Writer

 January 27, 2023