Let me eat cake

I recall being 9 years old, maybe 10.

A lady stood outside our church in the car parking lot talking to my mother. She had turned to me and looked me straight in the face, "I can see you baking cookies and sewing dresses''.

This really bothered me because at that age and even right up to my present day when I recall that supposed prophecy I think, "How uncool". I shrugged it off eventually but at the time I was afraid that perhaps her words would find me actually wanting to sew and bake. The thought of these things horrified me. "Who wants to sew and bake anyway?!"

Fast forward to present day and I'm surrounded by friends and family who bake, some of which have started their own businesses as bakers. Still no urge to bake. I have a lovely little sewing kit in my study cupboard. It has all the needles and colourful threads a girl could dream of or ever require.

Sadly the only thing I could manage to muster up is a rethread of a button, which for a lack of a better analogy looks like a weaver bird got hold of the said thread and made itself a house.

After purchasing a couple of dresses from the local boutique (and by boutique I mean home industry store) I found myself thinking "Heck I could make this dress". I then expressed to Craig that I would be interested in purchasing a sewing machine and even spoke with my colleague at work who offered to teach me a few things on the machine. Suspicious isn't it.

Last month as the first rains hit Johannesburg soils, Craig and I retreated to our room and watched a movie from the comfort of our bed. The film was called "Julie and Julia", a story about a modern day writer who takes on the challenge of blogging her first-hand experience of Julia Childs recipes. This moving story with a personally disappointing ending finds Julie healing and growing through Julia's cooking. This got my brain working and thought that the same challenge could do wonders for my own personal growth, specifically in the non-existent culinary department of my life and home.

Over the last four weeks I've found myself exploring recipes (don't laugh) and actually trying them all out. I've successfully followed the procedures with great results and even bought myself a baking tin and cupcake tray.
(Waaaaaait a second here!)

So there I was lastnight, baking up a storm. I made 4 tins of my special farm bread and 1 tin of jumbo cupcakes with mix that I had bought from SPAR en route home and I was enthralled with the results.  Channelling my grandfather who, if I can recall was a bit of a legend in the breadmaking department himself. I felt this creative expression through food in an easy to mix cupcake sachet quite liberating. I've managed to feed a couple of mouths and I even licked my own cupcake-mix saturated spoon.

Have I arrived at the said prophecy, or am I just growing up? Perhaps my inner home economics student is coming out from years of redundancy but its fun, fun, fun and I can't wait to share, learn, create. My grandparents would be so proud, heck anyone who knows me would be impressed!

The plus side is that, if I actually learn to sew and make my own clothes, I will have all the tools and know how to make adjustments to all the waistlines from all the eating I'd have done :P