I took last week off because I was gorging myself on beige foods and a randomly expensive bottle of red wine we found in our cabinet. I hope you can understand.
Coming home for the holidays meant a long overdue reunion with my nail tech (sporting red nails ATM, if you were wondering), sitting by a fireplace that I once overlooked but now feels like the most luxurious thing in the world and actually having space to cook, or if you’re me, bake.
I am not adept in the kitchen. I can get around it just fine - which I believe is a skill in itself - but I’m not adept. Instead, I live vicariously through my friend who makes salads that border on art or binge the one and only Claire Saffitz on YouTube.
While that is my unfortunate reality, it doesn’t mean I don’t like cooking or baking. I would say however, because of my circumstances, it’s not something you can often find me doing.
The space to do anything in the kitchen in my college home is extremely limited; it makes the kitchen in my family home feel industrial sized.
The idea of being home for the holidays and actually having counter space and a stand mixer… I couldn’t resist. I decided this was the year I’d contribute to the Thanksgiving dessert line-up.
In an effort to veer away from all things pumpkin, I went straight to New York Times Cooking to consult their recipes. I was initially drawn to the idea of cranberry lemon bars, but I needed something that’d be a real crowd pleaser with a wider reach. The perfect Thanksgiving sweet presented itself: pound cake with brown butter and pecans.
I won’t detail the entire process, but let’s just say I made a mess. My mom and I were scraping off an absurd excess of the brown butter glaze I’d adorned the cake with on the night of Thanksgiving Eve, but it was all a part of the experience.
After some hiccups and a whole lot of crushed pecans, I stared at my finished pound cake. It (just go with it) stared back at me. I’d folded in flour and whipped for 5 minutes (among many other steps), and now that I was done, I felt like I’d really done something.
Far too many people received photos of the finished product, but I didn’t care. I was proud. Baking isn’t something I naturally excel in, but I’d done it anyways, and for lack of a more complex word, it made me really, really happy.
And, it was delicious. My family told me so. I’m choosing to believe they were being honest.
Thanksgiving isn’t necessarily my favorite holiday, but having some skin in the dessert game and hanging out with the people who love me the most… it wasn’t so bad.
In my perfect world… I’ll get a head start on my Christmas dessert.