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Breann Apr 1
She stands at the counter,
flour dusting her fingertips,
cinnamon curling through the air like a whisper
she’s afraid to speak aloud.

A pinch of salt, a dash of thyme—
she throws them in like she’s casting a spell,
but nothing ever turns out right.
Too much heat, not enough heart,
the flavors never fold into each other,
never blend the way they should.

In her mind, another bowl waits—
one no one can see.
She tosses in “too much,” packs in “not enough,”
folds in “too loud” like stiff egg whites,
sifts in “too big” until it settles in the cracks.
No recipe, no measurements, just
a mess she can never quite fix.

She walks through the grocery store
like a stranger in a foreign place,
staring at shelves lined with things
she doesn’t know how to use.
Aisles stretch too wide, labels blur,
and the pressure knots in her stomach
until she turns around, empty-handed.
She just won’t go next time.

She can bake, though.
She knows the way sugar melts into butter,
how vanilla warms a room,
how patience turns batter to gold.
But sweets feel like a confession,
like proof.
So she says she can’t.
Pretends her hands are clumsy,
her cakes always sink.
Shrinks behind the lie
because it’s easier than the truth.

She just wishes she could cook.
Wishes she could make something people need.
Wishes she didn’t feel like a failed recipe.
celeste Dec 2024
i curled up in a ball today, watching the sky shift through different shades of gray. i didn’t think much of anything. i lit an apple candle. i made apple muffins. i listened to random playlists on spotify.

and at the same time, today, i thought of everything. today was shannon, and how the warmth reminded me of her office, how it felt good to hear her compliments all to myself. they were mine.

i crushed my apples and brown sugar together. thinking of the world i once got to be close to but they are gone, and i see the butter crumble out of my hands. you deserve better. you deserve better. you deserve better.

letting myself close my eyes, feeling the pulse in my head cutting like the knife in my hand, and how i ache to cut the past from my life. nothing but the blood pouring out of my head, where i can finally run, run, run.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2024
What does baking require of us?
It requires patience, thoughtfulness, an eye to your surroundings, otherwise known as
simply paying attention and responding accordingly.


more gourmand than gourmet,
who believes like the firmament above
that the transportation of
the human soul is enlightened,
enlivened
by the aroma of scent of
an endless freshly baked loaf of bread

need to confess,
never held
a rolling pin,
nor had a mustache white
made of flour
upon my face,
and if ere the toaster oven
had not been
installed invested or even invented
in a kitchen,
the only thing
I would ever have
preheated is the body
of a woman who truly
was loved
complete and insane
daily for
sixteen
years

but the perfume of a
newly baked brioche
can bring me to
tears
just as a newly unearthed,
the child of a poem
writhing within me
emerging, even surging
from the soiled placenta
of my
souled~soiled mind&heart,
borne and born
yeah,
even
bre(a)d

so I read an article about
a baker from France,
reading the words above
and wonder
what did I miss,
forfeit,
after a lifetime liftoff of
a badly chosen careered life
that i did trust love
or so I thot!

wondering why bakers are the way
they are. There is a quietness, and a kindness, to their lives that veers into almost monastic behavior. Perhaps it is simply the ancientness of being a fire maker — tending a hearth really brings something out in a person.


how I glowed and flowed
with recognition of the
esprit de corps
(borrowed identically
from French to our
Anglais lexicon)
in all acts of creation,
a fabulous trade,
a new conception
eye spied on the streets of
My Manhattan

understood the mesmerizing
heat of a crackling fire
for children of all ages
and the why~when
the birth canal opens,
I must be alone with
the quietude that
tries and fails
to hold the raging
heated hot juices inside,
kept nope, not in check,
so formatting them into
a disc shape,
lest they spill unseeded floored,
a pour of ooze,
crisping the lost flesh
of flames eradicating
from
the plenitude distractions of
short term, this modern life

<>

Sunday,
in my America is a holy day,
a sabbatical
marked by rituals sacred,
brunch, football games
or maschostically
even two on a
Josephian
coat of
many colored  channels

all this followed by
with a desert tray of
patisserie,
PBS (1) ****** mystery tv shows
of British origin
for a somewhat lessened
yet still violent contested cultural
amuse bouche

In between,
the ladies squeeze in
a Great British Baking Show,
which says when suggested
you’ve been bested
and
‘Yo Boy,
time to ****, Nat
them deserts make you fatter,
by mere visual osmosis’
and contemptible contemplation

and that contested kitchened
atmosphere
antithetical to introspective
inspection
which life ingested in you
overly oveyly
aplenty
in placed,

so now I wonder
if this,
a career chosen
by youthful me,
the maledom masculine shouting of the
traditional trading room,
where ego was nourished
within a veneer of analytics,
rationed rationales reasoned,
was down to the nearest $ sign,
was it
the right place for me,
and how it sponsored within me,
a need ultimately
to sit
in ancien worn
by fig & vine
in uncomfortable Adirondack thrones,

a bright need
to sit by  the
saluting salutation waves of
a constant lapping bay,
and the conversation of
a current thrusting empowered
tidal basin rivers
waters both
lightly salted fresh water
in piety poetic
combination,
all fed by genteel
small mountain streams,
all flowing, by gravity sent,
to assemble ingredients
of
verbs, noun words in
an adjectival temple,
unkempt kept simple,

in different voices
well  hid **** deep
beneath his skin, his bone,
for to simply order up;
a bake off up,
a meringue of
poems

and to better understand what
our well definable,
oh so human
l i f e

requires,
even demands
without surcease,
of us
?
all the while
we
twogether
areexpelling the rap we
breathe
and the scented heaven
of holy wine and
unlimited
loaves of
yup,
b r e a d


nmlipstadt
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/magazine/best-brioche-recipe.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Teyah Nichole Jul 2022
Me and my journal
Got those old country blues.
Turns out,
White hot heat
Doesn’t make
for a 'Brown River, Smile'.

So,
    I cried some.

Then bought eggs. And flour.
And sugar. And butter, for cake

    And made one.  

Because young life during hard times
In old country
Isn’t left with much else
to do–

    Just make something beautiful
    And hope to get through.
Came to me after crying into a cake I baked for not apparent reason.
Bobby Dodds Dec 2021
When the baker bakes the baked bakery bakes,
Do they also bake the recipe required?
What's the recipe for a poem?
Does the poet pen the poetical poem poetically to pen their pretty poems?
What temperature do you bake ink-
To make it a bestseller?
How much baking powder do you bake into a page
To perfect its pagey turny pageiness?
What kinda poem crust does a poem become encrusted in?
Should it crumble?
Should it rhyme?
Should it cry a melodrama so dramatic that drama llamas like “that too much drama!”?
Wait,
Where did drama llama come into this?
Who else is in the kitchen cooking this poem pie?
Is the poem pie perfectly pied in its drama crust?
WAIT-
we forgot about the filling…
What do you put in a poetical poem pie?
Should I peach the pied poem?
The peaches plumpy peachy smile?
(i’m not sure how the drama llama feels about that)
Should I fill the peachy pied poem with orange and lemon citrus ?
A little bit of snazz to the snazzy apple pie.
Crap, I forgot the apples as well.
Well now my peachy pied lemony apple-orange poem is too long!
And i still don’t know what temperature to torch these thoughts at!
Well the pied piper pipes in that maybe my peachy pied poem needs some pepper
To pipe the spice to pied poem levels!
But lemony apple-orange peachy pied poems with pepper seems a touch peppery for simple pied poems to be.
But who ever said a poem pied can’t have spice and everything nice WITH lemon and apple and orange and peachy fuzzy smiles?
So,
My peachy peppered pied lemony appley orangy poemy is piping hot to boot.
Now i just need to figure out whos gonna eat the **** thing.
been a bit, I'm back.
Eli Sep 2021
Cooking is
The mastery of intuition
It is knowing, smelling, tasting perfection
Before the simmering soup completes its wearisome journey
It’s love
Happy Mabon
He received a candy cloud that contains ‘L. O .V. E ‘
shaped smile.

She then turned on an electric
sky oven.  Autumn baking mode: +/- 272x

Havent you agreed with “(M&M)Theorem states?

The cream + the skim milk would bring the same price as the whole milk

Only if there were no costs of our separation …
How to celebrate Chinese Valentine Day
Jess Carroll Mar 2021
Strawberry jam; it's so sweet and crisp
Pour it in the batter; give it a whisk
Now take the pan and pour it in
And let the baking begin!

You wait a while; 15 minutes or so
And take it out; remember how it was batter 15 minutes ago?
Well now it's sweet and hot in the pan,
Thanks to the addition of some strawberry jam!
Jay M Jan 2021
Wound with joy and cheer
Unaware of the danger near
Moments away
Racing mind, rather absent
Hurry, hurry, hurry-!
Outcry echoes throughout the space
What searing pain
Heat from surface to flesh
Red as ripest tomato
Forming spots of pale white
Oh dear, what plight

- Jay M
January 8th, 2021
Burned my fingertips when baking this morning. My pinkies didn't get burned though, so I can still sorta type. It's gonna be a long day, haha..
clmathew Jan 2021
I stand in the kitchen
not really present
talking about baking potatoes
with my husband.

For a second
the girl who baked potatoes
in so many other people's kitchens
looks out of these woman's eyes
awed at the fact
that she can bake potatoes
in her own kitchen.

In that instant the woman
receives as a gift
the incredible pleasure
of baking potatoes
in her own kitchen,
and is grateful.
What pleasure am I missing this very second, by being distracted and lost in the past or the future? What pleasure is around you this very moment?

Thank you for reading me!
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