What a crazy year this has been. A year ago, March 13, the lockdown began. It has been an odd year in many ways and a sad and horrible year, too. We have lost so many people near and dear to us, and socialization has been replaced by fear and shaming. I wanted to write from another perspective, how I used this past year to be creative, instead of dwelling in fear and shame.
A year ago, almost to the date, I started filming How To cooking videos from my kitchen. It all started because a good friend asked me how to brew kombucha, the ancient fermented tea with probiotics. I filmed that video and posted it on what is now my YouTube channel. That was the beginning as they say. After that, I moved on to showing folks how to make healthy versions of some of my favorite recipes. It so happens that a few years back I authored a cookbook called Behind Every Great Recipe-From Latkes to Vodkas and Beets to Meats. It has some awesome recipes including my 2 favs, Monsters and Beet Burgers.
My most popular How to video is a Whole30 recipe that uses a mere 6 ingredients. It’s called 6 ingredient no bake brownie bites, aka, Bob’s Balls. Another popular recipe is my chocolate chip banana nut bread. A year ago I started baking these breads. Some were vegan as one of my daughters at the time was a vegan. The bread is so good that I started making them weekly, and then it got so crazy that I started keeping track of how many breads I made. In normal times, if I made one bread a year, that was a lot. Not any longer. At the beginning of the pandemic, I remember walking down the baking aisle of my grocery store to find empty shelves. Where was all the flour? yeast? baking soda? sugar? Really? Was everyone now baking while in lockdown mode? I was shocked. So, every week I’d go and check out the aisle much to my chagrin as it seemed that everyone was at home in their kitchens baking bread.
One day I asked my husband to see if they still had the 35 pound bag of King Arthur flour in Costco. Lo and behold, they did and he bought me one. It didn’t last very long I must tell you. Now they no longer carry that large bag, I guess because the average baker can’t lift it off the shelf into the cart, so they have replaced it with 12 pound bags. I started making no knead harvest breads in a dutch oven and they are unbelievable. I tweaked the recipe and added healthy ingredients like hemp seeds, flax, pumpkin seeds, etc. Then one day, I made a cranberry walnut bread and it is incredible. I do have a sweet tooth as I imagine most bakers do.
So, here is the final count. At one year’s mark, I have made 75 chocolate chip banana nut breads. They have traveled all over the country from Maine to Florida, from Oregon to San Diego, to Arizona, Connecticut, Virginia, and of course New York City. I’ve eaten my fair share, but I’ve also gifted and shared them with friends and family all over the country.
And if you were wondering what this has to do with paper crafting, well it is just another way of being creative. If you’re reading this, you’re likely a paper crafter and enjoy stamping or receiving hand made cards. I have also spent hours in my stamping studio making amazing cards and I continue to do so. One of the joys of being stuck at home is being able to create things, whether they are cards or banana nut breads. Getting to 75 breads in one year is right up there with paying .79 a gallon for gas at the height of the pandemic. Those days are gone I think!
If you’ve made it this far, I encourage you to try something new and fun. Stamp, bake, and make someone smile every day. Life is too short not to! Need help? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help you get started. Ciao and as we say, mangia tutti!