Baking as therapy

There's something about baking just for the sheer pleasure in it. The creation process that goes from raw ingredients to hot, fresh from the oven, smells oh so good. I have realized that since my return from Iraq, I seem to be doing it as therapy without knowing it. What led me to this conclusion is the fact that I have given away almost all of what I've made even before I was diagnosed as diabetic.

As I look back through my life, I can see how there was always an interest in baking. Of course in my younger days it was all pre-made mixes out of a box. But being young without a focus, and too many interests in other things, it never really developed.

It's only now in my mid-forties that I'm looking at it as what I want to do for the rest of my life. I would like to do it for a living but am prepared to accept it as just a sideline if that's how my life goes. My military career is drawing to a close after twenty-six years and making my living in the culinary world seems to be the only thing that brings out any passion and interest for me (aside from books of course). I need to do something that I love and care about, just punching a clock for a living at a job is living death as far as I'm concerned.

My ultimate goal is to be involved in food somehow. My dream is to open a small cafe or make and sell baked goods at farmer's markets. Only time will tell if I realize those dreams. Who knows what the future holds, I sure don't.

I do know the satisfaction of watching others eat what I've made. It tells me I've done something good. That I can create a solid, tangible thing that not only is sustenance, but pleasureable to people. Something real. I've taken good things from the earth; grains, fruits, and vegetables and turned them into a finished product that gives someone nutrition and is pleasing to the palate.

The two instructors I had this past semester told me I had talent and worthy goals. Their words meant something to me and I have to pursue it.

"[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells...there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread." M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating