Introducing…Bake Your Way Through a Divorce

So it’s been really quiet here on the blog for a while.  It turns out, it’s hard for me to blog “normally” when I’m going through something as emotionally upsetting as a divorce. Everything in my life and my work, honestly everything I could possibly want to write about, ends up relating back to the divorce, which I can’t talk about because of the legal process and because it is so intensely personal.  At the same time, and what is in some ways worse, many of the very things that inspire me to blog at all…are dead to me.

It’s been silent on the blog because it’s been terribly silent in my creative life.

Well, my sister mentioned an idea to me the other day, and I confess I glommed onto it almost immediately: “What if we bake our way through a Great British Bake Off cookbook?” she said. I may have left her a voicemail overflowing with enthusiasm.  Because somehow, it fired me up.  It inspired me.  It excited me.  It gave me a project, utterly unrelated to work, that could take my mind off the divorce.

I’ve got my glass of milk at the ready.

However, upon further discussion, it was found that said sister could not start baking again until October, as she is in the middle of an amazing kitchen remodel in her brand new house (so adult!), and the oven won’t be turned on again for a month.  And upon research, I realized that a lot of the GBBO recipes are quite specialized…and I am essentially a poor divorcee.

But it won’t leave my mind.  It’s like there’s a little voice saying, “This is the key to feeling alive again!” which is a terribly cliche, Hollywood thing to say.  In fact, as the movie Julie and Julia has already been made, it’s a good thing I don’t want to cook my way through Julia Child’s cookbook. But I want to feel alive again, and sooner rather than later.

So I have decided that once a week for the remainder of the fall, I will bake something and blog about it in some way.  I’ve got a list of recipes, simple and difficult, that are new to me and begging to be made.  Some have a few specialized ingredients, some are ultra pedestrian, a few are savory, most are sweet, and they all sound amazing.  They’re all sourced from the Internet (which I will both copy and link), and the only tweaks I might make will be for budgetary/too-lazy-to-shop reasons. Don’t expect fancy photography, though – I’m an actor, not a photographer.

It will be a new adventure!  Into the baking world!  Where many others have gone before me. But this time…it’s my turn.

photo credit: Cakes & Bakes: Macadamia nut & cranberry cookies via photopin (license)

#divorce #cliche #Hollywood #Baking #JulieandJulia #therapy #Sisters #Artist