Easy as pie!

Cake (as well as pie, biscuits and tarts) has been on my mind quite a lot this past week… and on my plate! 

My eldest is home for a while and, as I think I may have mentioned before, she loves to bake for fun, as a way of coping with stress or anxiety, and just as an excuse to then have great cake, pie, biscuits and tarts to eat. 

I love this! Though the downside is that I most definitely have to walk further and quicker when out with the dog to compensate for the amount of cake, pie, biscuits and tarts eaten. 

I love it for a number of reasons (on top of the actual cake itself) 

1. It is a mechanism that she has developed to cope with the stresses of modern life – it slows her down, it is kind of a meditative or ritualistic activity for her – the process is the same for her and includes research, music and one heck of a lot of mess! 

1. I love that this is inpart about passing on knowledge and skills and creating confidence to head off in your own direction. It is something that is largely self-taught and has grown from spending time with her Mum learning some basics and then having the confidence to do her own thing. She makes the most amazing vegan cakes and can substitute pretty much anything in a recipe without skipping a beat.  

1. She makes do with what she has and adapts. Ok so in part this may be down to lack of planning or being too lazy to go the shop but she knows what can and what can’t be substituted how to change a recipe without making it something completely different or simply downright disgusting. To me this is about an understanding of the inherent qualities of a ‘thing’ and just what it is acceptable to change before it becomes a completely different ‘thing’. 

1. Cooking and baking are a connection with our past and our communities and nature – many recipes and the history of food reveal changes in social and economic structures and many are rooted in places or seasons – I sometimes get a chance to explore this with her (on days out such as at Gainsborough Old Hall or Wordsworth’s House in Cockermouth when they have working kitchen days). 

1. Baking can be a simple process or it can be super complex with many steps – the tastiness of the end result is not necessarily proportional to the increased complexity but the enjoyment of the process probably is. Sometimes the simplest of things work best – there is a reason that ‘simple as pie’ is a saying. Sometimes the fun is in the process not the end product. 

1. If you have ever been involved in community development, you probably know that food brings people together. So thanks to my youngest for sharing this clip with me last week – it’s good to have some academic evidence of its ability to do that so that when you add ‘cake’ to your funding application you can provide a link to research to justify why it’s necessary! 

1. Oh and finally, did I mention I do love eating the cake! Not just because I like cake but because it is something made with love and care and to not eat it would be disrespectful and wasteful.