Apple Cake

Wait, you thought I was going to spend 15 minutes a day writing on my blog? Ha! Where in the world did you get that crazy idea? Seriously people, let’s be real. 

(Ok fine, I was going to spend 15 minutes a day writing on my blog, but that, obviously, has not happened. Why, you ask? Well, life happens.)

But I’m writing now. Bugaboo is down for her nap and the laundry is in the dryer. I just mixed together an apple cake that is baking in the oven so the whole house smells like apples and cinnamon and coconut. It’s a nice moment to sit in. The apple cake recipe is one I’ve had for a while but only recently used. My recipes have travelled around the world with me in a ziplock bag as of late. They used to be all handwritten neatly in a big green checkered binder that had dainty sketches of fruit in the borders and “From the Kitchen of __________” written in a cute font across the top of each page. But during one of our trips out to Kenya last year, in an annoying act of irony a horde of starving termites ate their way through the pages of ingredients leaving behind chewed up paper and tunnels of dirt. I cut out what I could salvage and put the recipe scraps in a termite proof baggie. It’s just as well since the ziplock bag look is probably a little more my style than country-kitchen anyway. At three AM last September, when we were frantically sorting through the contents of our house to decide what made the two-suitcase evacuation baggage allowance and what to leave behind for whatever civil war brings, the bag of recipes made the cut. At the time is what a mindless decision. Ziplock bags don’t take up much room afterall. But now I can’t help but wonder if there was something more to it.

Though carted around the world rather unceremoniously, that ziplock bag holds pieces of me that have been collected for years and will be savored for many more I pray. There is tons of stuff from my mom. Rather innocuous “Healthy Muffins” and “Baked Oatmeal” balanced out somewhat dramatically by all her Thai stuff: “Taud Man Goong”, “Neau Pad Prik” and “Gang Keow Wan.” There is my mother-in-law’s lasagna and blueberry bread, two that never fail to please the husband and my Aunt Sharon’s white chicken chili. There is a recipe for chocolate pudding that came accompanied by a tin of cocoa, delivered by a bush pilot whose wife had heard I was sorely in need of chocolate. There are recipes from strangers, mostly sweet old ladies who slipped hand-written note-cards in envelopes at wedding showers once upon a time. Most are stained and splattered from days that I frantically threw something together for an unexpected guest or just wanted to make something nice for a loved one. There are recipes that I have made over and over and over again and those that I have never tried that are just waiting for the right spirit of adventure to take hold. 

The apple bread recipe is my Granny’s. I made it for the first time over Christmas and did so cautiously; there have always been other more experienced aunts and cousins around to take up the apple cake mantle if Granny herself didn’t. But it turned out good. I think I made it today because I have been thinking about her a lot. We recently found out that, after a scary fall, she won’t be leaving the nursing home where she was recovering. Her memories are already starting to leave her quietly, as though they just slip out of the room when she isn’t watching. The newest trivial ones fade first, like what drawer she put her clothes in or how to operate the CD player or who came by to visit in the afternoon. I imagine these memories bowing out respectfully, making room for the treasured images that come with raising five children, marrying the love of your life, or being a little girl. It’s as though memories themselves hang on to a sense of priority and rank as long as they can. 

I fear that making an apple cake is probably in the first or second tier of memories. And the thought of Granny never making an apple cake again makes me incredibly sad. But I made one today. And because some of her is in some of me, I feel like she had a part in that too, whether she remembers it or not. The aroma of baking apple cake fills my whole house just now and it makes me feel attached to something just out of my reach.

Fifteen Minutes

I must apologize to all my readers in advance - those of you I know personally, those of you I have never met and those you who aren't really reading this blog anymore now that there are no longer any exciting stories about life in an exotic place (sorry about that) - the next few weeks of my blogging life may be a bit odd. So I mentioned that I signed up for a writing class while we are here in the States. I went back and forth about the whole thing really. It's the first five week course in a series that is ultimately supposed to help you end up with that 300 page novel you have secretly always wanted to write but know you never really will. Yeah, it's one of those classes (the first one, introductory level, no serious commitments, so dear sisters who still resent me for my unfinished manuscript of "The Naladite Ring" which I abandoned at age eleven can just calm down. I'm afraid that project remains on hold.) The whole thing intimidates me out of my gourd. I mean, what is scarier than sitting in a room full of talented adults who all assume you must think you are talented or else why else would you have signed up for this and bearing your blood, sweat and tears on paper for the world to see. It feels like one of those dreams where you look down and realize you are sitting in one of your college classes with nothing on but a wash cloth. And then you just try to act normal and hope no one notices. Yeah...like that. (Other people do have those dreams right?)

But at the end of the day, I'm going to be more miserable if I don't try this. The one self-indulgent thing that seems to have survived the violent pruning of motherhood is writing (and yes, that is over sleeping and pooping some days) so I figured, it must be something important to me. We might as well see where this goes.

I had my first class on Tuesday night and...it was awesome. Yes, I am still scared to death but my head is already swimming with new ideas and previously unthought thoughts. Our professor is a published novelist (Suzanne Frank anyone?) who is just beautiful and snotty enough to be impressive but not enough to be distasteful. On Tuesday she wore boots and a flouncy skirt complete with gold bangles and a chain necklace weighed down by a dozen four inch turquoise crystals. It looked a bit dangerous but made sense of the time-traveling romance history novels set in ancient Egypt that I hear she writes. Not exactly my cup of tea (at least not that I would admit) but what she had to say inspired me. And scared me some more. It made me feel better that most of my classmates seemed just as nervous as me. Most seemed to be middle aged women looking to be the next Stephanie Meyers. But not all. I sat next to a banker who was in there just to become more "well-rounded." Last year she took a drawing class for the same reason. That, my friends, is guts.

Anyway, back to my original apology. One of our assignments (of many) is to spend fifteen minutes a day writing. The likelihood of me doing that on top of all my other assignments and being a wife and mama AND blogging is about as likely as me making cordon bleu for supper after working out and organizing my closet. Which means it's not going to happen. So I am killing two birds with one stone here and my fifteen minutes ends up on my blog for you to deal with. Sorry about that. But thanks for your patience.

Gotta run. Time's up.

P.S. - She also said to make sure your blogs are never just stream of consciousness because who really wants to read that. Oops. Sorry again.