Hey Shorty Cakes

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be the year that I’ll have to keep this in mind. Also, Ira Glass is one of my nerd crushes and I watch This American Life on Netflix Instant when I don’t know what to do with myself, but I still want to feel smart.

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken.”

-M.F.K. Fisher

Last night was my first night at the new shop making pie mixes.

My first batch was key lime and I spent a good chunk of my shift separating eggs. Separating eggs is one of those things. If you think too much about what you’re doing, you inevitably screw it up. The times I got perfect, whole, dome shaped yolks were the times that I spaced out and let the rhythm of scooping from shell to shell do the work. Then I would think “oh, awesome. that one worked,” and try too hard on the next one, resulting in yolk soaked hands.

Five dozen eggs later, I’d like to say that I’m an expert; however, all I’ve done is learn that I’m better at life when I don’t pay attention.

I haven’t decided yet if this is a good thing.

“First we eat, then we do everything else.”

-M.F.K. Fisher, my favorite person to quote.

“They say if you truly find a job you love, then you’ll never work a day in your life,” Foot told me, and he wasn’t talking about coal mining. Fifty-two head of beef cattle, a brand new Massey Ferguson 390 tractor, a Krone 125 baler, and a 995 Case with a loader on it—that’s why he mined coal, to afford his farms, two of them, 280 acres in all. He was hoping to buy a third, because he had three kids and it only seemed right to leave each kid a farm. “There ain’t nothing I like more than to smell that fresh-cut hay, throw that hay, rake that hay,” he said. Sometimes neighbors offer to help him; they’ll say, You work down in that mine all night and then you’re out on that damn farm. “And I just tell them, ‘If I was sitting here on the bank with a fishing pole in my hand, fishing, would you come to take it out of my hand?’ Well, no. And I say, ‘Well, this is my fishing.’ You know. This is my fishing.”

I just finished reading this article from a 2007 issue of GQ about coal miners, and this quote resonated with me. It was a great article, by the way, and not at all related to food or baking. Nevertheless, great writing is great writing and I think we can all agree that the overall theme of this blog and my life at the moment is pursuing a career that one loves, whether or not it’s related to that overpriced, highfalutin, slowly depreciating Bachelor’s degree that we’re all told we need.

But I digress. I’m looking forward to my next 8 hour shift of rolling pie crusts, my next 2 hours experimenting with muffins, and my next 3 hours of staring at a blank computer screen and the taunt of a blinking cursor. Baking is my fishing. Or maybe writing is. I haven’t decided yet. I’ll decide when I’m an adult. Which will be when I turn 30. I’ve definitely decided on that.

Liz: What kind of cake are you making?

Me: Better than Sex.

Liz: Doubtful.