![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Baking - balm for the soul
Apr. 3rd, 2009 05:51 pmThere's something in the adage "easy as pie".
I've got an egg and bacon pie in the oven, and it really was the easiest thing in the world. 10 minutes to make the pastry, then another 20 to roll it out and assemble the pie (pies, actually, since I made a large one for myself and my beloved, and a small pie for the small girl). It would have taken longer (and cost more) to drive to the supermarket, buy a premade pie, bring it home, and heat it up. The reason I have become a baking devotee is not because it's cheaper and easier than the ready-made option, however. Rather, it's because I find it so infinitely soothing. Rubbing the butter into the flour reminds me of being back in my gran's kitchen, watching (and then, later, helping) her make lard pastry for her meat pies. Rolling out the pastry and putting together the pie makes me feel almost inexpressibly centred and calm; it's closer to meditation than I get doing deep-breathing or yoga. But the crowning moment, the one that never fails to lift my heart, is taking the golden, gleaming pie out of oven. There is no culinary experience so uniquely satisfying as the sight and smell of a pie you have baked yourself.
I've got an egg and bacon pie in the oven, and it really was the easiest thing in the world. 10 minutes to make the pastry, then another 20 to roll it out and assemble the pie (pies, actually, since I made a large one for myself and my beloved, and a small pie for the small girl). It would have taken longer (and cost more) to drive to the supermarket, buy a premade pie, bring it home, and heat it up. The reason I have become a baking devotee is not because it's cheaper and easier than the ready-made option, however. Rather, it's because I find it so infinitely soothing. Rubbing the butter into the flour reminds me of being back in my gran's kitchen, watching (and then, later, helping) her make lard pastry for her meat pies. Rolling out the pastry and putting together the pie makes me feel almost inexpressibly centred and calm; it's closer to meditation than I get doing deep-breathing or yoga. But the crowning moment, the one that never fails to lift my heart, is taking the golden, gleaming pie out of oven. There is no culinary experience so uniquely satisfying as the sight and smell of a pie you have baked yourself.