Three weeks of quarantine, and I’d say it’s about time for another blog about my daily disasters. Most of you know that I am quite open about the clumsiness, frequent slip-ups, and comical misfortunes that so often seem to characterize my life. And believe it or not, this shelter-in-place has done absolutely nothing to slow the rate of my “incidents.” So, forget about the worries plaguing your brain for five minutes, and sit back and enjoy the latest laughable moments of my week.
I have to provide some background for this in the form of a shout out to my incredible physical therapist. To say she is my physical therapist is to short-change her importance to me: she has, over the past few years, become a mentor, friend, and mom away from home. Anyway, I had emailed her with an update about how I was doing since I’d had to stop seeing her for appointments–she always reaches out when she hasn’t been able to see me in a while. I apparently mentioned in my email that I was baking as much as possible but that flour was frustratingly hard to come by given the recent grocery stockpiling trends. I say apparently because I forgot that I’d even said that until last Sunday, when I received a text and accompanying picture from her informing me that she’d bought me a 25 lb. bag of flour because she “could not resist” when she’d heard about my struggle. She’s just amazing.
She let me know she’d put the flour in the trunk of her car at work so that I could safely retrieve it without violating any social distancing orders. Yesterday afternoon, I donned my recycled t-shirt mask and headed out on probably the third car ride I’ve taken in the last month. After a pleasant drive accompanied by the lively tunes of my recent 1940s/1950s jazz kick, I pulled into the parking lot, eager to retrieve the precious cargo. Not seeing her usual car–and deciding it wasn’t the best idea to go peeking into random car trunks with a mask on–I texted her from my car and discovered she’d taken their other one that day. I excitedly spotted the car and the flour in the window, opened the door, placed a plate of “thank you” coffee cake on the seat, and grabbed the 25 pounds of what may as well have been gold, for me.
I hobbled over to the back of my own car, fueled by visions of the endless hours of baking that awaited me. The bag made a pleasing thud as I dropped it into the trunk, but it was accompanied by a slightly less pleasing cloud of flour that tickled my face. My excitement had blinded me to the little hole I’d poked in the process of transferring it across the parking lot. I pulled back and blinked away the white puffs, noticing the rip on the surface of the bag.
Naturally, in a situation that had no further consequence (the bag was already in the car; I was outside, so no worry about a mess; the hole was on top, risking no further leakage), I panicked. Naturally, my brain was overwhelmed by the sudden interruption to its celebratory state and found the most reasonable reflexive bodily reaction to be for me to give the torn bag a nice, hearty, slightly spastic slap. And, naturally, I was wearing black leggings and a black sweater and black socks and black shoes that day. The bag wheezed with the impact and shot out a wide spray of its contents–I’ve come to understand that, when it comes to flour, the size of a hole is in no way proportionate to the amount of carnage. Giant tear= nuclear flour explosion. Little bitty tear= equally nuclear flour explosion.
Suddenly becoming fully present in the current moment, I took a step away from the car to evaluate my mistake. My entire front was, indeed, dusted in a layer of white–from my mask all the way down to my sneakers. Now, you have to understand just how accustomed I’ve become to miniature disasters: this didn’t even come close to phasing me. Without thinking, I simply engaged in the practical deescalation steps that one develops when they possess the clumsy inclinations that I do. We’ll call it the triple A:
- Address the immediate damage (I thoroughly patted myself down)
- Assess and minimize the level of spectators, applying a sarcasm diversion as needed (I scanned the parking lot for any familiar faces and found none)
- Act like nothing happened (I calmly got in my car and left the scene, lightly coated in flour but safely undetected)
And that, my friends, is how I cope with my chronic common sense deficiency.
In true character, I returned home, washed my hands, carefully transferred the flour to a safe storage bin, threw away the ripped bag inside a plastic bag to avoid a mess, and…locked my car key in my trunk. By that point, all I could do was laugh. I somehow manage to jeopardize even my most well-engineered moments of caution. Thankfully, I won’t be needing my car for the foreseeable future, so I can write this to you with relatively no qualms. I’ll get around to solving that problem another day (breaking into my own car–oh, I’m certain that will result in a story to tell). For now, I’ll rest in the joy of laughing at myself, of having so many generous people in my life, and of all the baking I can do with 25–ok, maybe 24–pounds of flour.
Hoping you find a reason to laugh today 🙂
Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”
Genesis 21:6
Spiced Coffee Cake (V)
Ingredients
CAKE
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar (vegan if desired)
- 2/3 cup sugar (vegan if desired)
- 2 tsp vinegar
- 1/2 flax egg (1 1/2 tsp flax mixed with 4 1/2 tsp water, left to thicken in fridge for at least 5 minutes)
- 1 3/4 cup flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ginger
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup water
FILLING/TOPPING
- 1 1/2 cups oats
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar (vegan, if desired)
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup shortening, melted
- 1/4 tsp maple syrup
Instructions
CAKE
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 8″ cake pan.
- Make filling/topping: in a bowl, whisk together oats, cardamom, ginger, and salt. Mix in shortening and maple syrup, and set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, mix together shortening, sugars, and vinegar. Use a spatula to fold and mix until well combined.
- Mix in flax egg.
- In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cardamom, turmeric, and salt.
- Gradually add the flour mixture and the water to the shortening mixture in small additions, alternating between each and whisking well after each addition. Continue until all ingredients are incorporated. The batter will be very thick
- Spread half of the batter onto the bottom of the prepared cake pan.
- Sprinkle half of the filling mixture evenly across the first layer of cake batter.
- Spoon the remaining cake batter on top of the filling, and spread to cover the pan with a spatula.
- Top with the remaining filling, and bake until knife/toothpick comes out clean, about 45-50 minutes.
- Enjoy! Store extras in sealed container on the counter.
I did not, in fact, post a meat-filled sandwich on my very vegan blog. This is actually a tiny dessert!
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