oven joys.

Snickerdoodles took my baking virginity. They were my first for real-from scratch attempt. It was for a school thing. Something on the inside of me changed. Before the act, there was a moment when I realized that not all good things come from a mix, and that those recipe books collecting dust on my mother's shelf help one build things. I love building things. Especially yummy things. So I built a batch of snickerdoodles. My first cheese cake was a boston cream. I didn't even get a slice. But I enjoyed making the ganache more than I enjoyed all of my graphic design courses in college, combined. My bar phase happened post college; raspberry bars, oatmeal blackberry, and chocolate toffee. When I lived with my brother, he begged me to stop baking with oatmeal.

For the past few years, I have been in - what my customer Mark calls - "an in between phase". Many of my collegiate counterparts have gone in a direction. I have been directionless. This is not a flaw, in my opinion, as it builds belief and character, and hopefully, an understanding of those things I don't want to do. For example, I don't ever want to have a job with a dress code. My first attempt to go to work at William Sonoma, the place of slacks and tucked in shirts, socks and closed toed shoes, was laughable. I dressed and left, read the dress code again, changed, read it again, changed again, and left, almost late and still shrouded in dress code insecurity. I also don't ever again want to work somewhere that requires a bright colored T-Shirt to be worn to work. How would I have discovered these things had I not immersed myself in the in between phase?

I have also discovered that I do, in fact, want baking to be a part of my future. Someday, I would like to own a bakery. Until then, I am weaseling my way into baking where people already come. I worked at Great Harvest for a while, until the bright colored T-shirt began to take away my humanity. It also could have been the getting up at four to make fresh scones for the people that were on their way to the dress-code jobs. Or the fact that I was baking what they told me to instead of what I wanted to; no creative freedom is no good. I quit when my wonderful boss at the coffee shop told me she would buy an oven. She did.

This made my dreams come true, in an almost sort of way. My banana bread has began to change people's lives. A few mornings ago, I baked my first for-sale treat from my own recipe with my own hands and ingredients. It was a cranberry orange muffin. I felt a little like I did in college when we had to present our final pieces to class and have our classmates pick them apart, except the stakes were higher this time, as there was money involved. People would be paying for these treats. I felt uneasy and elated and complete and insecure. I was sure they would be a failure and a success all at the same time, and I had to use butter instead of oil, which added in to the mix an unknown variable.

They started to get golden in the oven. A pleasant aroma began to fill the cafe. I nervously took them from the rack, made a little sign, and placed them in their little plastic display. I wanted to hide. I didn't want anyone to know I made them. I didn't want anyone to buy them. I wanted to sell them all.

One of our regulars came to the counter. He is a construction man with a consistent scowl and a speaker of very, very few words. He ordered a coffee and "one of those," pointing to my muffins. I calmly took a tissue, picked one of the best, and placed it on a plate for him. He couldn't see, but I was doing cart wheels on the inside. My intestines were having a jovial conversation with my spleen. I didn't need to warm it as it was still warm from the oven. He sat in the corner and ate.

I told Margarita how she had made my dreams come true. Construction made came back the next day for another one of "those muffins".