Day Twenty Four: Baking

I am a good baker.

Seriously, I am. I’m very excited for the day that I get to open my own café and get to bake everything for the store. In my dreams I have a nifty little café bookshop that is like a secret local place (probably in San Fran) and everybody loves it. In reality I know that 87% of small businesses fail in the first year, but if I can just make it past that first year I’ll be good.

I’m a really good baker. Every year for Christmas I bake sugar cookies using my grandmother’s recipe, which I will probably be doing tomorrow. I also recently found a recipe for biscotti that Victoria’s mom put in the cookbook we made our senior year of high school. I fully plan on spending the next several days baking my ass off in preparation of my Christmas party.

I’m pretty awful at making pies so I usually let my father handle those ones. I actually got my love of baking from my father; some of my earliest memories are of standing on a chair next to him while he made apple pie or cherry pie or baklava. It’s something I’ve always shared with him and treasured. The only difference is that I tend to bake at one in the morning while he tends to bake at reasonable hours of the day.

This season is an especially big season for my baking because my family always ships baklava, cookies and caramels to each other. A big part of my family is military, so we also always send some to the troops overseas. One year my cousin called from abroad asking us to send him more because the senior officers had confiscated his baklava and ate it all before he and his buddies got any. It’s hard to imagine being away from your family for the holidays, which is why I always think that we should support our men and women overseas during this season. I mean, how many country songs are about soldiers spending Christmas on the battlefield? A lot.

Baking is a great thing to bring friends and family together. I ‘m really excited this Christmas to bake with my boyfriend for the holidays because I love sharing everything with him. So look forward to getting some yummies this season while I go on my crazy baking spree. Hopefully this year I won’t burn down the kitchen or anything.

Challenge to my Readers:

Make something today. Be proud of something, any activity, that you’re good at. Revel in the fact that you took the time and practice to be good at something.

Also, consider baking as a holiday gift this year. Even if you don’t actually want to bake, you can always assemble the ingredients into jars and decorate them to give as gifts. Something you make yourself is always special.

Note: If anyone feels inspired to send stuff to our troops for the holidays, be aware that the military no longer accepts “Any Soldier” or “Any Wounded Soldier” as a viable delivery option. Your best bet is to use one of the sites listed at Support our Troops to give them stuff.