A TALE OF TEN CAKES*, or What I have Learnt from Lockdown So Far
Red Velvet Chocolate Cheesecake
April and May are busy months for birthdays among my friends, and in normal times these months would be filled with celebrations. 2020 however is certainly not proving to be normal times, and since we in the UK went into lockdown on 23rd March we have had to reinvent our living and socialising habits to an extraordinary degree. Some (I am one of them) enjoy the calm and quiet that lockdown has brought, both to the world outside our doors and to the social lives that can often seem overwhelming. (When, for example, was the last time you REALLY felt you had finally caught up on your sleep?) Others hate lockdown, with bars and restaurants and clubs closed and social lives curtailed to the unnatural window of Zoom meetings and social media streams. Whichever camp you fall into, we are all having to dig deep to discover what motivates and energises us, understand what and who is vital for our well-being, and how big is our capacity for caring for ourselves and for others.
This is where the cakes and birthdays come in. I have always known that I love food and take a weird pleasure in feeding people. I credit both my parents for this; my mother for moving to Greece in the late ‘50s and discovering the wealth and richness of Greek and Turkish cuisine (which she imported to the food desert of ‘60s London); my father for his wildly creative cooking and joie de vivre which manifested in every meal he cooked and every bottle of wine he opened. I am therefore a good cook (really, I had no choice!), and I particularly love the magical chemistry that comes from baking. So when lockdown began it seemed a logical and easy thing to start baking and delivering birthday cakes to doorsteps on my daily permitted exercise, as well as giving me a great incentive to get out my bike and explore parts of London I would perhaps not have visited when swarming with pre-lockdown traffic. So my plan was made: I would take it upon myself (whether they wanted it or not) to celebrate my friends’ birthdays by baking something for them and delivering it by bike to their doorsteps, perhaps also giving them the chance to see a real friendly face and have a socially-distance correct chat from pavement to doorstep. Of course, I hadn’t really considered exactly HOW many birthdays friends have in April and May, let alone the number of people within cycling distance that I know, who are on their own in lockdown and who may be in need of a freshly-baked cookie and a random chat. So far the tally is this:
10 Birthdays (of which two were significant milestones), celebrated with: Victoria Sponge Cake, Butterfly Cakes, Chai and Chocolate Cupcakes, Coconut Macaroons, Red Velvet Chocolate Cheesecake, Orange Spiced Cake with Orange Butter Icing, Dark Chocolate Torte with Salted Caramel Centre (my favourite), Lemon Drizzle Cake with Elderflower Icing, Baked Blueberry Cheesecake and Devil’s Food Cake with Salted Caramel.
Various other goods (some baked by my boyfriend) including: Double Chocolate Brownies (my other favourite), Red Velvet Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing, Flapjacks (twice) with and without Chocolate Drizzle, Banana Bread, Biscotti, Tahini and Almond Butter Cookies, Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, Elderflower Cordial.
My mother, who is now 90, is amazed by this baking fervour and asks me often who is paying for all this bounty. I answer ‘me’, with a sense of money being extremely well-spent. Why? Because I have learned a number of things about myself from my stint as a baker and bike courier, that I think are useful for me to know and which I hope may also be useful to you, the reader.
1. You need to decide who you can help, AND BE OK WITH IT. In all this uncertainty the most important person that you can help is yourself. That means giving yourself permission to look after yourself first, mentally, emotionally and physically, in whatever way works for you. For some people looking after themselves is all they have the capacity for – and that’s absolutely enough. If there’s more capacity, some may also be able to look after their partner or their children, or their close relatives or their best friend. Great. That’s already strengthening the links in your life which are the most important. Others may have a bit more capacity and can expand their circles of care wider; looking to support their friends, or their housemates, or the elderly couple down the road, or their local homeless centre, or the medical staff and key workers who are working so hard to keep us all healthy and safe. Some few may have the capacity to expand their circle of care to entire communities, or cities, or even countries. What matters here though is not how big your circle of care is, but how consistent and reliable it is. Most people have a streak in them of wanting to be a social saviour, but stepping up to the task is one thing (remember all the volunteering and enthusiastic energy around making scrubs for the NHS or providing meals to homeless shelters when this first started?), and seeing it through, even if it sometimes seems boring or pointless or draining, is entirely another. I volunteered for a few things, including as a first responder, when all this first kicked off. However, I have now stepped back from them, realising that for me it’s most important to focus properly and consistently on a smaller circle of my friends and acquaintance. I’m not going to lie – baking pretty much every other day over the last couple of months has at times left me completely baked out and never wanting to look at sugar or butter or chocolate again (yes, really!). But then I remember how happy people are to receive something made with love and care, and how friends are asking me when I’m going to be in their neck of the woods next, so they can have a different, real person to talk to. And I realise that although the circle of care that I have made is perhaps smaller than I hoped, and is demanding more of me than I expected (the bike miles alone are pretty impressive), I am able to maintain it and enjoy it and bring joy to others, and that’s the important thing.
2. Set yourself priorities that truly make you happy. Now that our social calendars have been severely curtailed, I am looking at this as the time to try and banish the insidious FOMO that seems to rule our lives and, instead of looking at what other people are doing, I am using the time to find out what gives me a sense of satisfaction or purpose. I’m not talking about the instant dopamine hit you get when someone comments on a photo you’ve posted on FaceBook, or the adrenalin rush you get when you reach level 80-gazillion on your computer game. I’m talking about those things that enrich your life. It may be doing things for others (back to the cake-making), or finally taking care of that bit of DIY that’s been nagging at you for ages. It may be adding some new physical exercise to your daily routine, or learning a skill that you’ve always meant to try but never had the time. Now you have the time, not only to do these things but also to do them wholeheartedly and with the focus and attention that they deserve. Personally, I’ve found there’s something very soul-destroying about going to bed at night knowing that the only thing I’ve done with my day is to reach level 1600 on Candy Crush (I’m not kidding - finally making the decision to delete the app from my phone was really really difficult!). Conversely, knowing that I’ve done something concrete like baking that cake, planting those tomato plants, or going for that long bike ride fills me with a sense of positive purpose. And that makes it easier to get up the next day and make a new list that will give that day purpose as well. As a result, I’ve found that my priorities have altered and that they seem somehow gentler and less hectic than before. Leaving aside from the overarching need to earn money in order to live, I am discovering that my priorities include: being kind and thoughtful towards others, whether friends or strangers; taking the time to look after myself physically; trying to do something creative every day; tending and enjoying the nature around me; constantly trying to learn. Sometimes I do all of these things in a day and that feels wonderful. Most of the time I manage some, and go to bed with the vow to try and do more tomorrow. Occasionally I flake and stay in my pyjamas on the couch, stuffing my face and binge-watching box sets. But having a set of priorities that are truly important to me allows me to get up each day with a renewed sense of hope and purpose and positive energy, as that is something I can then hopefully spread to others around me as well.
3. Sometimes in communities, smaller is better. London, the town I have lived in almost all my life, is huge. It’s vibrant, it’s diverse, it’s sometimes scary and it’s often surprising. But living in a city like this is often a challenging experience, as it’s very easy for the individuals in it to get lost in the noise. One of the things that lockdown has done is remind me that this city is actually made up of villages, which are in turn made up of and defined by the people who live in them. I am lucky to live with my wonderful boyfriend, have a good friend as a housemate, and have number of friends who live very close to me, as well as my mother who lives in the flat downstairs. And then there are the friends further afield in the city to whom I courier my baked goods and who in return share their jars of homemade chutney and books and muffins and – best of all – conversations on this crazy parallel universe we are currently living in. Therefore, in effect I have already created a small community, this one based on shared experiences and a communality of values. What has come as a surprise however is the wider community that I suddenly find I’ve been living in. I’ve been in my house for almost 40 years, off and on, but during that time I have only ever got to know one neighbour. When lockdown happened however, a leaflet appeared through my letterbox inviting me to join a What’s App group for the people living on my road. Would I have put myself out there and joined it, using my real name and house number, before lockdown? Probably not. I have been trained for years not to talk to strangers, just in case they are nutters or dangerous or – horror of horrors – actually want something of me. But now I find myself part of this hitherto unexplored community, looking after packages for neighbours, inviting the kids next door to come play in our garden so their frenzied parents can have a break, borrowing a wheelbarrow from down the road, or donating books to someone who is self-isolating. The celebrations of VE Day were a chance to actually meet some of these people and that was nice. But what’s nicer is that suddenly the strangers seem less strange, I don’t feel like a weirdo for smiling at people on the street and saying good morning, and that I feel more sense of community now than I ever have before in this house. Will it last? I hope so. But it reminds me that my city is built not of bricks and mortar but of the smaller networks of people who live here. And that most of them are not crazy or dangerous but in fact a lot more like me than I might give them credit for at first glance.
What else will I learn about myself and about the society I live in during lockdown? I don’t know. If I have any more realisations that might be of use I will let you know. We truly live in strange times and things that seemed impossible even two months ago are now becoming part of the new normal. In the meantime, I have a cheesecake to make and a walk to take before the sun disappears. And then I might try my hand at making pasta…
* In case you’re interested, as of the end of September I am significantly past 10 cakes, and - give or take a few - the count stands at around 35. Here’s the latest list of baking craziness: Victoria Sponge Cake, Butterfly Cakes, Chai and Chocolate Cupcakes, Coconut Macaroons, Red Velvet Chocolate Cheesecake, Orange Spiced Cake with Orange Butter Icing (in CanaLankan colours), Cherry Pie, Rosemary Cake with Elderflower Icing (twice – once for a birthday and once for me), Mango Tarts, Toad Lime Pie, Satan’s Devil Food Cake with Salted Caramel, Lemon Whisky Fruit Cake, Chocolate Passionfruit Tart, Apple Crumble Pie, Rabbit’s Carrot Cake (in the shape of a carrot), Dark Chocolate Torte with Salted Caramel Centre (twice - my favourite and my boyfriend’s so he got it for his birthday), Lemon Drizzle Cake with Elderflower Icing, Baked Blueberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Orange Crunch Cake, Chocolate Cake with Tangerine Filling, Gluten-Free Chocolate Almond Cake, Double Chocolate Brownies (my other favourite), Red Velvet Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing, Flapjacks (twice) with and without Chocolate Drizzle, Banana Bread (twice), Biscotti, Tahini and Almond Butter Cookies, Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, Apple and Almond Muffins, Apple and Rum Cake (OK - my boyfriend made these two), Apple and Rhubarb Tart, and Double Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies.