Baked

I started getting into bread baking a couple years ago when I realized that there is NOTHING better than bread. Except maybe…no, nothing. Sometimes my results are great, sometimes my loaves something closer to a giant hockey puck, but the more I practice, the more consistently decent they become. In the summertime, though, my appetite for bread ebbs somewhat and I start to look for something new. A few weeks ago I made a sour cherry pie that was, I gotta say, a-mazing. Like, change-your-life good. And it wasn’t just me; other people’s lives were changed as well. The crust was tender and flaky, the filling was sweet and tart, and it was all made from scratch. It was so good, I wanted to build a summer house in that pie and live there until Labor Day.

My friends heaped on the compliments, and I loved every minute of it. “I can’t believe you can bake!” “This might be better than my mom’s!” Then down came the hatchet: “You’re so domestic!”

I almost choked. There is probably nothing more terrifying that you can say to an urban professional woman of my age, especially one who has recently moved in with her boyfriend and is very, very touchy about falling into traditional gender roles. We are non-traditional in many ways, aside from the whole living-in-sin thing; KBF (Kat’s Boyfriend) does not particularly follow sports and he reads fiction. We are equal wage earners. I can be a bit of a hothead, and a certain futon delivery man might suggest that I have a ways to go in the patience department. He might also point out that my language is not very ladylike.

But God help me, I love to bake. Does this mean I can’t be a feminist? Or do I now have to subscribe to third wave, Sex and the City-inspired, The-Pussycat-Dolls-Are-Empowering brand of feminism? This is stressing me out - I’m gonna make some cookies.