Bake-off was a little more than I could chew
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Sometimes we can't resist overextending ourselves. You get a chance to do something memorable, something difficult, something competitive -- something you might not realistically be able to do. But it's like a month and a half away, and through wildly faulty reasoning you figure your future self (who will bear no resemblance to your current hapless self) will somehow have it covered.
Why do we do this? And why do we tolerate this baseless boosterism from ourselves? If your significant other committed you to a future feat that way, you'd flush his socks down the toilet.
I was probably thinking about my mother when I got in over my head. Mom was a brilliant cook. Meanwhile, I am so dangerous in the kitchen that I have been thrashed by a rutabaga, filled my freezer with wine-and-broken-glass slush and blown up water.
In a moment of optimism, I entered a bake-off.
A Welsh teacake bake-off -- which actually makes it more of a fry-off, because, like pancakes, Welsh cakes are authentically cooked on a griddle and dropped on the floor when you turn them.
For the contest, I had to make 80 of them. Fourscore pastry disks that would each have to be punched out of dough and fried on both sides. What could go wrong?
This event was organized by the St. David's Society of Pittsburgh, and there would be judging and voting and prizes. St. David's Society members are teacake connoisseurs; teacakes are the default "cuisine" of proud Welsh-Americans (numbering, by my rough tally, about 138 not counting the corgis).
I've had compliments on my teacakes -- at least that's how I choose to interpret "Isn't that interesting!"
Teacakes look like cookies from a distance. They traditionally have currants or raisins in them, and from a ways away, their size and spottedness is a dead ringer for chocolate chip cookies.
First Published May 5, 2011 12:00 am
