Baking mania: My Domestic Goddess Project and Blueberry Muffins

Since the end of September, I have been seized by an obsession with baking. Most of the time, there isn't any reason or occasion to bake for, but smelling the mixture of egg and flour is itself an unbeatable joy.

In the beginning, I simply reproduced the old recipes that I used to follow. Only occasionally did I consult my cook book, Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess.

I didn't much justice to this recipe book before this September. It stayed on my shelf most of the time after H gave it to me as a birthday present last year. But, I am glad that I started enjoying its friendly recipes before it was too late.

One day when I was holding Domestic Goddess in my arms, my housemate joked that it seems to be my bible and suggested that I should try to complete all of its recipes. This random thought sounded like an interesting challenge. Yes, it would be fun to start a Domestic Goddess project, isn't it? So here I begin my baking diary following Nigella's magic hands measuring, chopping, blending, and playing with aromatic ingredients. It is especially fun when following those recipes that do not come with photos of their end products. An advantage is that these verbal descriptions do not impose any standard by which my neophyte efforts can be judged. Yet, there is a disadvantage that my beginner's knowledge cannot equip me with knowledgeable imagination about what I can expect. A friend said that it can be very trying when waiting for the baking to be done. After the batter/dough or whatever enters the oven, what remains with the bakers on the other side of the oven are anxiety and anticipation. It is somehow true, but why is baking still one of the most common ways to relax among people that I know?

Anyway, it is the first entry of my Domestic Goddess project: Blueberry Muffins. It is on p. 72 of that book. I substituted blueberries with raisins. The raisins were soaked in rum overnight, and I self-indulgently convinced myself that they were more like fresh blueberries in that way. They came out very well, I think. The faint sweet smell of rum was very addicting.

Let's see how far I can go with this project.

Rubber band
Originally uploaded by Wanchen Tai

I played with a rubber band between my fingertips while I was on the phone this afternoon. The importance of the serious issue in discussion over the phone rendered me rather inarticulate. I needed to divert my attention a bit and relax my nerve, and the rubber band happened to be handy.

I didn't really know whether playing with this small object helped ease the conversation in the end, for, as far as I can remember, I was fully engaged in the dialogue. Honesty, rather, between me and the other conversant on the other side of the world has led us to a happy and promising point which will keep both of us inspired and optimistic about our respective concerns.

After hanging up the phone, I noticed the distorted rubber band that my unattended creativity had made between the spiral of my diary. It was not like any cheap rubber bands that I used to see, I think. I recalled that it did not bite my skin but felt rather smooth, silky: nothing plastic. Its color was somehow potently dense; it is powerfully elastic, submissive to the tortures that my fingers imposed on it and resilient enough to return to its defining shape. It didn't provoke any irritation that the plastic nature of rubber usually suggested. Instead, the three arches between the inked and blank spaces in my diary appeared rather arty and thoughtful. It guided my thoughts to follow its curvy paths.

I saw a lesson about flexibility, a note on how to strike a balance between being submissive and being resistant, between the contrary forces of the world and the self.