After I left my first restaurant job with a crash and a burn, my mom offered for me to move back home and spend the next year writing about my experience. Unwilling to forsake my life in the Bay Area and still very much wrapped up in the restaurant world, I turned down her offer. Seven years later, I finally feel ready to start telling that story. I’ll start this week with a little prelude for context:
I was not a picky eater growing up. I loved food the way a golden retriever loves a tennis ball, it had my full attention, it seemed to be my purpose in life.
Even foods that most kids would push away in disgust, I found intriguing and delectable. I ogled over pimento stuffed olives. I munched on whole white button mushrooms. I did once gag on a canned oyster, but I attributed that more to a personal failing than anything wrong with the snack itself and eventually learned not to shy away from peculiar textures, taking quail egg shooters at the local sushi restaurant like a champ.
Like most food professionals, it was not just my love for food that inspired me to pursue a culinary career. It was the memories of togetherness attached to my favorite meals. It was a slice of chocolate cake with my mom after school. It was going through the dozens of rainbow colored bins at the local candy store with my siblings. It was the barbecues at my childhood home where my dad served up cheeseburgers that I’m still convinced no burger smashing hipster joint can beat.
To me, the best life had to offer was good food and good company. I still feel that way.
In high school, I struggled. A bad boyfriend, fights with my mom, bouts of depression and constant anxiety. Cooking shows became a balm for my angst. Something about Ina Garten’s sweet chuckle whilst chopping garlic was soothing to my chaotic internal world. I was mesmerized by the sound of her wooden spoon scraping against a ceramic pot of caramelizing onions. I could almost smell the browned crust of an apple pie removed from the oven of her immaculate kitchen.
It occurred to me to go straight to culinary school after high school, but my parents insisted I get a college degree so I went to UC Santa Cruz where I majored in Psychology and then Art History and eventually landed on Literature (when I couldn’t pass a class on ancient artifacts of Polynesia).
I wouldn’t say I was particularly happy in college. I made friends, but I struggled to feel at home. I put on tight dresses to go to frat parties and participated in school events but I always felt a little uncomfortable, like I was playing dress up or trying to fit into a world where I didn’t belong.
I wept to my mom on the phone, begging her to let me drop out or at least point me in a better direction, not knowing that the answers I needed were mine alone to discover. It would be a decade before I would even really begin to unwind my (often debilitating) mental health struggles. But I managed the highs and lows the best I could, doing what I needed to cope.
It was 2012, my Sophomore year of college when my obsession with baking blogs began. I was captivated by the photographs of tarts and cookies, the colorful layouts of the websites. I even loved the stories and preambles that came before the recipes, the ones that have been made into about a million eye rolling memes. I didn’t care. I was comforted by how vulnerable the creators were about their personal lives and envious of the way they had turned their own self discovery into art and a livelihood.
That same year, I got a little white golden retriever puppy and named her Honey. Together, my undying love for my dog and my baking hobby were the two things that kept me afloat. When I started my own blog, it seemed only fitting that I named it accordingly, Honey and the Baker.
I got to work, recreating desserts by my favorite bloggers, a chocolate frangipane tart from Dessert First Girl, rosemary lemon bars from Take a Megabite, anything and everything from Joy the Baker. I spent the Summer after sophomore year perfecting french macarons and making plum cakes with my little white dog always nearby, sleeping on the kitchen floor while I whisked and kneaded, folded and whipped.
It was the first time in my life I had a hobby that was truly mine. I wasn’t following my girl friends around or watching my boyfriend at band practice anymore. I was creating something of my own. It wasn’t just the baking either. It was writing about my life, making sense of how small and lost I felt, photographing my creations and putting them out into the world to my small, but kind and supportive audience.
I finally understood what it meant to feel lit up.
Of course, in the following years, I got distracted by exams and boys and going out to bars, caring for Honey and finishing my degree. I was spotty with my blog posts but it remained my guiding light. I knew once I finished college, I could finally go to culinary school and start my real life.
More to come! In the meantime, you can find me on instagram and tiktok.
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Haha 100% 🫶
Looking forward to reading more.