#13 - Baking!

I am, by nature, an anxious person. Most of the time, that anxiety is manifested in stress over schoolwork, or, more recently, in applying to grad school. Over the years, I've learned how to turn my anxiety into energy, forcing my self to work instead of panicking. That hasn't been working too well lately. The other day, I was on the phone with my father, asking his advice about my Teach for America interview, and something he said sent me into a full blown panic attack. If you've never had one of these delightful experiences, consider yourself lucky. Sitting in the kitchen, talking to my father, I was convinced I was going to die. My throat constricted, my heart started beating unusually fast, and I felt like someone was stacking bricks on my spinal cord. Not fun.

My panic attacks are short-lived (usually less than a minute long), but they happen with alarming frequency. I've tried just about every possible method for making my crazy go away, but so far, only one thing has worked (at least, in a preventative sense): baking. My father is an amazing cook, and my grandmother and sister are both really great bakers, but among my family members, I am notoriously lacking in the kitchen.

Up until this year, that is. Baking has become a major hobby of mine lately, mostly because when I bake, I don't think about anything else. I find a strange comfort in the clinical directives of recipes, in the knowledge that a few simple ingredients can make really delicious food. I've taken to baking when I'm emotionally overwhelmed, and that emotion is sometimes translated into really delicious mistakes. A few weeks ago I made Carmel Apple cupcakes following a grad school-induced panic attack, and, hands shaking, poured way too much nutmeg into the mix. I didn't want to start over, so I went online to try to figure out what would temper the taste of nutmeg. The answer? Mace, of all things. So I put mace in the cupcakes and hoped that they wouldn't taste awful. And you know what? They didn't. They were delicious.

This morning I made Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins. I wasn't exactly stressed at the time, but I anticipated that I would be later today. The recipe was adapted from the Sour Cream Raspberry Cupcakes on my favorite cupcake website. I used almond extract instead of vanilla, and used a little less sugar and a little more flour to make them more muffin-y. They were delicious. Maybe even better than my Dad's. And that's definitely Something To Be Happy About.