determination

I realized Sunday night that I had no idea what to write for today - I didn't do a whole lot of cooking this past week. I did, however, get the first results of my Holga 110 experiments back, maybe a post on that? I know, I know, I pretty much just declared this solely a food blog, and yet...


That won't do.

So, Monday evening, I looked through my kitchen and found a lot of disparate ingredients leftover from other cooking endeavors. I thought, ah, maybe I'll try and do some sort of salsa with the jalapenos I have - but alas! they are no good. My next idea: well, I'll just make dinner. Peanut sauce and rice noodles, snapped some pictures, ate my dinner, and kept looking at the cake recipe sitting in one of my firefox tabs. Oh, boy.


Last Tuesday, after yoga, I was determined to make a cake. Molly's winning-hearts-and-minds cake, to be precise. There were a whole slew birthdays coming up, and I decided this cake would be perfect for these events. The only problem is, I get back from yoga at eleven at night, which doesn't exactly make for a prime baking situation, as it turns out. It was nearing one when I let the cake cool and discovered - while turning it out of the pan to freeze - it was still a little too gooey in the middle. I sighed, wrapped it in tin foil, and threw it in my freezer anyway. It's still there.


But a cake called to me. I knew I wanted to make a cake - maybe to prove to myself that I could. I knew I wouldn't be satisfied unless I made the cake. Even though I failed before, even though I had no need for a cake in my apartment, what with the batch of cookies I had made on Sunday. Still. Cake. So I trucked over to the Safeway, picked up butter, and set to making a cake, thinking how much my feminism has changed over the years. I used to think that domesticity was the antithesis of feminism - and even though I (thankfully) grew out of that mindset, even a year ago I would have told you Cooking Is Not For Me.

Clearly, a lot has changed.


There's no recipe here, because I pretty much followed this one to the tee. The only adaptation I made was using a pinch or two of cinnamon instead of nutmeg, because that's what I had in my cupboard. I also, uh, hand-mixed with a wooden spoon. Definitely a shoulder workout, definitely therapeutic. (More and more I am choosing the old ways. More than ever I understand that feminism is about choice.)