First Thing I Did Back East

December 23, 2011

…besides sleep, of course.

I baked a cake.

We arrived on my mother’s birthday (happy birthday, mom!) and after I was finished work / conference calls, I whipped up a cake. From scratch.

My mom came home and said, “Where did you get the mix?”

Me: “I made it – like with flour and stuff.”

The look on her face was hilarious. She kind of smirked and I could tell she was thinking “Who comes home after an 8-hour trip, after moving from an apartment into a house two days before, after traveling the last two weeks for work, after moving across the country less than two months ago and bakes a cake from scratch?”

Me.

Besides being a nice thing to do for the birthday girl, it gave me a sense of normalcy. I was in a kitchen, pulling ingredients out of a cabinet, putting them in bowls and making something that would a) be complete and b) be consumed by people I love.

Sounds weird – but in a strange way, this made me feel ‘home’. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly did NOT bake cakes often when we lived in Philadelphia. (You’re welcome, Kenny!) It’s more like the act of being able to pull things from well-stocked cabinets and put them into familiar bowls and serve them to my family made me feel settled. Between the lead up to the move and the actual move itself, I’ve been a real live vagabond. Being able to make a birthday cake gave me a sense of home.

Of course, in my typical baking fashion, the cake looked horrific but tasted awesome. That’s what matters, right?

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