Written by: Rachael Sherrick
It is normal to have a plan in place. What was my plan, you may ask? I was going to make apple crisp, my dad’s recipe, with my dad for Thanksgiving. Sounds easy, but nothing goes to plan.
Thursday morning, my dad told me he had to go to work. As a first responder, it isn’t uncommon for him to get called in on busy days, and Thanksgiving is one of those busy days. So that one sentence told me that the plan I had set into motion was no longer on the table.
I thought of Novella Carpenter in Farm City, and how she felt when her queen bee died: “frantic and feeling sick to my stomach” (Carpenter 108). Though it may seem far-fetched pulling bees and apple crisp together, I felt like how Carpenter felt when she discovered her bee hive wouldn’t survive. Knowing my well-crafted plan was out the window, I was frantically coming up with a new idea. I decided to make cupcakes, but challenged myself to make handmade frosting.
A week later, I started on my challenge. The cupcakes were simple: put the box mix, water, oil, and eggs together, then put them in the oven for 20 minutes. Easy. The frosting, on the other hand, wasn’t so simple.
The recipe I followed, found on Joyfullmad.com, said it would only take 10 minutes. I doubled the recipe because it was for 12 cupcakes, while I had 24 cooling on my counter. 2 cups of heavy cream, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and lastly 1.5 cups of powdered sugar. Mix for 10 minutes in a chilled bowl.
Well, it seemed easy, but there was one problem: the author, Madison Wetherill, used an electric mixer. I was a broke college student without the electric mixer, but I did have a whisk and determination. I mixed the ingredients for what felt like forever, but after 30 minutes of mixing, I had fluffy whipped cream frosting and a sore arm.
As I piped icing onto the cupcakes, I started to think about the different stories I had read during class. Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass often talks about gifts, and that is exactly what I was making, a gift.
“A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it” (Kimmerer 34).
My gift of cupcakes was shared with my friends and roommates. They didn’t earn it or ask for it; I just wanted to give it to them, just as Kimmerer says a gift should be. The earth gives us gifts, and all the food we have is a gift. It is better to share the gift with others than be selfish and keep it for yourself.
Once each cupcake was carefully fitted with its frosting hat, I gave them out to my friends.
Each one stuffed their faces with a cupcake. “I guess you can call yourself a baker now,” said my roommate Bridget with a glob of frosting on her nose. Now I have a new recipe under my belt, and for finals will try my hand at making strawberry cupcakes with strawberry icing.