Crémé brûlée

I used to love to bake. Sunday mornings, I would get home from volunteering and try to finish a batch of cupcakes before my mom woke up. I sent cookies by the boxes to my brothers in college and, whenever they would come home I promised them homemade ice cream. I tried my best to not show up anywhere without a plate of treats and, when a friend lost a loved one or won an award, I would resort to my kitchen. I brought cookies and brownies and cupcakes to school because, when I offered one to somebody, they would smile and that was great. Baking was the easiest way to cheer someone up and the quickest way to remind someone that life is good.

But, I rarely bake anymore. I am a senior in high school and the post-it notes on my calendar beg me to choose my homework over my hand-mixer. Track and Stuco and Advocate and friends and school and family always seem so immediate. People are expecting things of me and baking is not one of them. So I don't really do it anymore. Instead, I do a lot of eating. I do a lot of being baked for and consuming whatever my friends worked hard to make. Instead of spending hours in my kitchen, stressing over which flavor of frosting my brother would like better, I spend a few minutes convincing people to share their food with me and even fewer swallowing it once they say yes. I have become a receiver, an eater.

But, I still love baking. On the mornings when I wake up too early to do anything else, I sometimes resort to my kitchen and my hands will easily fall back into habit, kneeling and mixing and mashing as if they never stopped. I did not stop baking because I grew tired of it or outgrew it. I stopped baking because, at one point or another, I decided I didn't have time for it anymore.

And that makes me sick to think about. Who am I to think I can go around eating people's food? Who am I to conclude that whatever I have to do is more important than cheering up a friend? Especially when my friends, the people I now take food from, are doing such amazing things. My friends' band just released an EP. Tons of them are being accepted onto colleges or offered scholarships. One of my best friends is in the cutest relationship I have ever seen and I am just sitting here, eating their food instead of baking for them. It's disgusting and I'm sorry.



Also, check this out: http://vinylsurprise.bandcamp.com/