Blowing Off Steam in a Messy Kitchen Weekend Meditation

Sometimes you just have to bake a cake. Right? Because it's been quite an emotional week, what with the very close election looming and the very big storm descending and Halloween/Da de los Muertos sending all sorts of shenanigans out into the world. And let's not forget to mention (in my neck of the woods at least) the Giants winning the World Series, complete with wildness in the streets and parades. Quite the roller coaster.

And that's just the wider world. In my own little life, I got to interview some big time chef heroes (gulp, stutter, swoon), caught a doozy of a cold complete with fog horn cough, and this morning I woke up to discover a spider the size of my palm calmly creeping across my duvet. So yeah, sometimes you just plant your feet on the kitchen floor, grab a mixing bowl and fill your head with nothing but a simple recipe and the sound of butter being smashed into sugar. Sometimes you just have to bake a cake.

And so I did and it was great, creaming the butter and sugar and then throwing in the egg. I went all unplugged, using an old wooden spoon and my girl power to whip that batter until it was smooth and shiny. I dumped in flour and peeled apples and greased the pan thickly with butter. I let the kitchen get all messy and dusted over with flour and apple peels and I dropped a half a jar of cinnamon on the floor but no worries! The cake finally made it into the oven and it smelled wonderful until, suddenly, it didn't and yes, in keeping with the roller coaster times I live in, I burnt that cake. But only just a little. (Actually, it has an appropriate Da de los Muertos kind of vibe.)

Still, I declare my cake making therapy a success. First, I got a little workout with the bowl and wooden spoon. Second, I got a CAKE from it all. Third, I got to MAKE that cake, as in I had a working oven and a working fridge full of ingredients and a working arm to mix it all up. Given what some folks are going through (and not just this week, of course) I'd say I had it made. What started out as a way to blow off some steam gradually settled into a quieter reflection on appreciation and staying grounded amongst all the toss and turmoil.

I put my cake on an appropriately black plate and sat there looking at it for a minute. I found myself wishing I could send that cake to any number of people and places. To the early Thanksgiving/mini-family reunion I was missing in Wisconsin. To the cold, hungry, and tired Sandy storm survivors and their relief workers. To my friends building a temple in India who were celebrating a birthday. To all the politicians and all the heroes and all the confused and troubled people just trying to find a way through.

I would say: Here. Please sit down and have a piece of cake. May it heal and comfort you. May it sweeten your tongue and remind you of what's really important. Whether you are cheering and celebrating or barely holding it together, may you know kindness and patience and may you remember that sometimes your deepest wisdom is your simple, everyday commonsense. So, here, let us lift our forks together and appreciate the tangled, messy, complicated, brilliant, wondrous business it is to occupy this planet together.

Let's just keep trying to not mess it up too much, OK?

Quote: "Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." - Wendell Berry
Cake recipe: This one, only with apples not plums
How to help: Occupy Sandy
Synchronicity: Tara was also baking an apple cake (hers has frosting!)

(Images: Dana Velden)

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DIY in the Kitchen: Carve Your Own Wooden Spoons

I have a beautiful wooden spoon, one of my favorite things in my kitchen. It was carved by hand and because of that, it was expensive. Totally worth it, in my view, but a once in a lifetime purchase for me. Every now and then I wish I could afford to give one as a gift but cost prohibits. So when I stumbled on an old article from Mother Earth News on how to carve your own wooden spoon, I was intrigued.

Mother Earth News first published the article How to Make a Wooden Spoon in the 1978 November/December print issue of their magazine but it is now available on their website. Author Lee H Arten explains how he taught himself how to make his first wooden spoon, a gift for his wife-to-be. Arten's tone is encouraging and matter-of-fact, making the prospect of carving a wooden spoon seem very reachable. He subscribes to the notion that the spoon is already present in the wood and the maker is just bringing it out.

Arten has never purchased wood for his spoons. He recommends asking lumberyards, furniture making operations, and high school shop teachers for wood scraps that would normally be discarded. He also uses tools that are easy to come by and not expensive, such as a pocketknife and a rasp. You can use a band saw to make the initial cuts, but it isn't necessary.

The article in Mother Earth News might be too sparse for some people. If you want more detailed instructions, consider Edward Smith's Making Wooden Spoons from For the Love of Wood which has pictures or watching one of the many videos you can find on the internet, like the one above.

The bottom line is that making a wooden spoon for your kitchen or as a gift is a relatively simple project that requires very few tools and is rewarding way to spend an afternoon. With autumn just around the corner and the holiday season just beyond that, this might be time to get started!

By the way, the spoon pictured above is the one I mentioned in the first paragraph and it's a far cry from what a beginner might accomplish. Still, it is an inspiration and I would like to credit the maker Lance Herriot as well as his daughter Nikole, who runs the online shop that sells his work and is well-known herself for her blog Forty-Sixth at Grace, as well as her photography and styling work. As I said earlier, the spoon is one of my favorites and it is a blessing and a privilege to be a caretaker for such a beautiful and lovingly made thing.

Related: Homemade Wooden Spoon Butter: For Buffing, Not Eating!

(Image: Dana Velden)

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