true confessions: key lime pie

Fact of life: It is hard to create.

It’s tough to keep moving through the blockages, to challenge yourself to be innovative, to act when subsisting is easier. I think that for many of us, the lulls between booming essays and satisfying works snatches our focus. We are weighed down during the in-between time, discouraged by all the goodness we aren’t producing. We’re even discouraged when our creations are duller than we think they ought to be. We’re seeking perfection in every little thing we think of, put our hands to, talk of. We expect to resemble the numerous Instagram-worthy, faultless images that we scroll through daily.

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rosemary cake with dark chocolate

It’s a blank page. It’s always a blank page. And yet every time it’s turned into a beautiful story. Even though it’s often far from eloquent, far from coherent, far from perfection, it’s a story. Your story, my story. Any word poured out on a page, any syllable uttered from the mouth, any brush spread across a canvas, any root stretched a little deeper. They are utterances of our stories. And they matter.

There are a handful of word artists that I deeply respect. For some, I haven’t even read all of one of their books. But the theme coming from each of their voices is that your art matters. Your art that my not feel like art at all? It is. It matters because it releases your person as you really are. It leads you to notice the beautiful and creative around you. It leads you to express, release, and give thanks. It leads you to the King. Every little step of the process is important, so much more important than anyone can make you realize unless you believe the Creator Himself. I read Shauna Niequist, Emily Freeman, Hannah Brencher, and so many more, and in one way or another I’m redirected to my King in the purest, most sensible way my heart knows. I think that is art accomplished.

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prosecco cake with grapefruit curd & vanilla bean icing

Sometimes working at a bakery and also baking at home proves to be a challenge. It’s hard to separate the two environments from a creative perspective. I want to be innovative at work and produce goods that will excite customers and do joyful justice to our industry. But as an at-home creative, I don’t want to exhaust it fully there. I want to test things and try things from my own kitchen, hopefully to eventually share here or with friends. And I don’t want those to overlap, for the sake of my work’s integrity. So in some senses, it feels like my personal endeavors have been limited.

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grapefruit curd

Grapefruit curd has been gloriously haunting my thoughts for weeks. Something about the grapefruit seems native to my family. My mom (i.e., Suz) loves it, from childhood days spent at her grandma’s Florida house. And somehow the grapefruit was always mysteriously in our house… Whether in juice or raw form. My mom eats it like candy. And she’s a purist. Back in the days when I thought it was too tart, I’d add some sugar and show it to my mom as if I was the front runner of the Enlightenment, insisting that it was way more delicious and how could she not want it that way. “Nope,” she’d shake her head. And then walk away, leaving me in a state of pure shock. 

Now I understand.

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