🧁baking

Years ago when I read Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic, I was very struck by her admonition to follow your curiosity. 

Following your passion, she wrote, is usually too big a task. We get all jammed up: is this my passion? What IS my passion? What does passion even feel like?!?

Curiosity, she said, is often easier to follow. 

She told this in conjunction with a story about writing the follow-up memoir to her global bestseller Eat Pray Love. She realized when she finished the draft of that book that it wasn’t her. She was trying to write in a voice that didn’t fit her anymore. 

So she stopped writing. She returned the advance she’d received. 

And she started gardening. 

In fact, she created an insane vegetable garden, after years of her adult life spent not having a garden at all. 

And through the gardening, she got the idea for her next novel, The Signature of All Things. (Which is completely fucking brilliant, by the way - read it if you haven’t yet!)

I’m in a strange season of life - going through some intense personal things. 

During this season, I have been watching an insane amount of The Great British Baking Show. (Bakeoff, if you live outside the US.)

Like: once I finished all the seasons on Netflix I googled around until I found where the old seasons are housed. (You can stream them for free on the Roku app. I don’t have a Roku, so I’ve proceeded to watch these old episodes on my phone.)

Then I googled around for the best gluten-free baking cookbook out there. Experts agreed it was Baked to Perfection by Katarina Cermelj. 

And I, who have never baked in my life (anything more than brownies from a box), have been baking all the time. 

Baking doesn’t have to mean anything. I don’t suddenly feel compelled to open a bakery, or to write a novel about someone who leaves the big city to open a small-town cupcake shop (although there’s nothing wrong with those novels and I adore Jenny Colgan). 

I’m not going to start a side hustle selling gluten free cookies out of my kitchen. 

I’m just enjoying myself. I find baking very soothing. And then at the end you have something sweet to eat. 

I’m just following my curiosity.

What have you been longing to do / try / experience lately? 

Follow the bread crumbs. Who knows where they’ll lead.