On baking and behavior

one act doesn't have to inform the other

I know all too well the pull of January’s goal-setting promise and the short few months in between this month and summer’s arrival.

“That woodpecker is trying to get into the house again,” I say to my spouse Janyce who doesn’t respond. She’s in the kitchen cleaning up the pile of pans and bowls of batter I left behind in the sink this morning, along with the cutting board I left out with the remnants of chopped nuts. I have a cranberry cake in the oven. I tell myself that I’m going to instantly cut it and freeze the portions for another time. But it’s January, and the house is cozy, so we’ll see what happens. We’re tooling around in our socks and the Bulgarian pork and cabbage casserole I made last night is warming up on the counter. I’m going to pop some of it back in the oven later today and we’ll eat it by firelight after a long cold walk we’re planning to take on the rail trail.

“She may or may not have eaten a little bunny poop when I took her out just now,” says Janyce, sitting back in the overstuffed chair in front of the bird feeder window with her laptop. She’s talking to me about our dog, who is curled up on the other end of the couch away from me, tucked up tight like a donut on the fuzzy blanket we left for her.

“Look at how good she is,” I say. “She knows where her spot is.”

The stereo belts out a jazz drum solo just at the moment I stop talking, punctuating the conversation between us.

“Did I? I set the timer, right?”

“You did,” says Janyce.

Moments later, I’m in the kitchen opening up the bottom oven door before the timer buzzes. The toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean and within seconds it is on the table on a rack steaming up the kitchen window.

Sour Cream Cranberry Kuchen

“I’ll text Spilman to come get some and let’s put the rest in the freezer,” I say to Janyce while we eat our plate of scrambled eggs and sausages with orange slices. I’ve given us each a small slice of the hot cranberry cake. “This is delicious but I don’t want to be eating cake all week,” I say.

A friend of mine texts me about her new diet. I know all too well the pull of January’s goal-setting promise and the short few months in between this month and summer’s arrival. I have my own goals, too. But food restriction is not on my list.

I was reading my email this morning and I found this little poem.

On Learning That Woodpeckers Don't Have Shock-Absorbing Skulls

Of course they don’t. Of course they optimize
the force that they apply with every blow.
They’d have to hammer harder otherwise,
to do the same amount of work. You’d know
this if you used your head for just a bit.
You don’t because you’d rather let them stand
as models of a headspace that you’d fit
yourself in gladly—wouldn’t it be grand
to bang and bang your brains and never mind?
You’ve seen how many jagged shards they spray,
you’ve seen how deep the holes they leave behind,
and thought, of course, they’ve got to have a way
not to feel all the force they must exert.
You wanted to believe it doesn’t hurt.

No pain, no gain — right? I don’t know where that saying comes from but it’s not something I want to believe today. The woodpeckers might say otherwise.

True to form, a mere fifteen minutes after my text, I hear my ex-husband Jim at the side door. Swirly hears him too and she runs to greet him. I’m already cutting his slice before he has his coat off.

“Do you want coffee?” I say.

“Yes,” he says, while making barking sounds to our dog who is bouncing around at his heels. He walks across the kitchen to lay on his back on our wool rug in the foyer.

“What are you doing? Are you old?” I say to him, holding a plate with his slice on it. I’ve topped it with a dollop of whipped cream.

“Don’t hand me that now, it takes me time to unfurl myself,” he says. “You try getting up from the floor.”

“The two of you,” says Janyce, shaking her head. “And don’t say that to her, she’ll show you how she can get up from the floor.”

I love her in that moment more than ever. She’s right. I have been working hard to get my body to do some reverse aging. Become more flexible at least, if not more slim. But I’m also trying to keep to my dietary goals, too, and — well, cake is definitely not on the weekly menu.

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Jim says his goodbyes in the driveway, now that we’re all back from our walk, and grabs the plastic container of cake he left sitting on the roof of his car. I wave and make a beeline for the house through the garage, remove my coat, and grab the remaining cooled slab of cranberry kuchen from off the baking rack. I wrap it in wax paper and several rounds of tinfoil before tucking it way back in the freezer for another day.

“What do you say we try out the rowing machine downstairs?” I say to Janyce. “Before a fire and dinner later?”

“I say let’s do it,” says Janyce. “Hey, no more cake for me?” she says while looking around the kitchen.

“I froze it for another time.” I say. “But I can always make you some peanut butter and almond flour cookies with chocolate chips.”