Joan Bauer's Journal

Thanks, Mom

I can remember a cupcake materializing in the midst of a rotten day. A candle being lit despite the darkness. A birthday party planned even though it had been too tough a season to really think about that. My mother, sister, and I made Pilgrim dolls and decorated the house one Thanksgiving, even though our father hadn't been seen or heard from for weeks. 

My mother's great gift was knowing how to celebrate life no matter what the circumstances. In my new novel, Close to Famous, I gave that gift to my 12 year-old protagonist, Foster McFee. When I began writing this story, I had, like a good baker, all the ingredients out on the counter:  Fear; danger; humor; celebration; change; resilience; denial; over-coming; vanilla cupcakes; secrets; loss; learning challenges; chocolate chip muffins; raw courage; brown sugar brownies; moist chocolate cupcakes; chocolate malt cupcakes; milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting; all out despair; and banana cupcakes with fudge frosting. And I thought, OK, Joan, this time, you've done yourself in. This stuff doesn't go together. But of course it did. That's how I grew up. 

My mom died a year ago.  I have many of her belongings, but the ones I cherish most are her casserole dishes. When I use one, as I did recently to make baked apples, the warmth of her in the kitchen is so real to me. My mother knew that cooking unleashes a special power. She would have loved Foster's great dream to be a famous kid cook on television. 

Close to Famous is the first book I've written that my mother never read. But, the lessons she taught me are baked into the pages. Thanks, Mom. This one's for you.

Close to Famous is available in stores February 3rd.  To learn more, visit joanbauer.com.

On Writing and Cupcakes

I just read a book on being more energetic -- actually, I didn't finish the book; I got a third of the way through it and put it down because the suggestions were making me tired. It used hyphenated words like full-engagement and full-throttle and I realized that I'm not interested in speeding across a lake, metaphorically speaking, in a racing boat, the wind whipping through my hair. I'm a writer, and so I sat at my computer and started fiddling with a new idea. In a few minutes I was feeling fully alive, so alive, that I realized I was hungry. I went downstairs and decided to eat something fun, and there were these cupcakes I'd made the day before -- maple pecan cupcakes with maple frosting. I am here to tell you that there are few things more fun than maple pecan cupcakes. I felt the old brain really start to perk. Have you noticed how energizing fun is? The book hadn't mentioned this. And then I looked in my living room.  A few days ago we had changed all the furniture around and I loved the new arrangement, so I sat in the chair by the window and felt wholly satisfied and not at all tired. I went back to my desk and played with my idea and  completely forgot what time it was until my husband walked through the door. How was my day, he asked. I brushed cupcake crumbs off my shirt and whispered, "Wonderful."  I didn't tell him the details of my new story because you can't talk about new ideas right away -- they're made of wisps in the beginning and so easily can blow away. I tucked the new idea into my heart. It will be there tomorrow when I sit down to write. The cupcakes will not. We ate them.  

Fierce Soup

I've just learned from a William Safire column that it is no longer cool to say that someone is hot -- as in, Wow, that guy/girl is hot. The new word now is fierce.  It's a lot of pressure to be cool and I'm not sure I'll ever get used to fierce as the new hot. I was thinking about this while making soup -- vegetable beef (easily adapted to veggie) -- that requires a certain fierceness to put together. It also needs to be served hot, as in temperature. I've been looking for something to keep my mind off the tumbling financial markets...

I don't know about you, but when times get unendingly tough I feel like I should be doing great, wise, and noble things all day to make up for the world's messes. So putting beef shank into a pot and covering it with water to begin the stock doesn't seem like a good use of my time when there are perfectly good canned soups I can buy. But the simple fact that homemade stock is being created on my back burner soon becomes a gentle comfort in a coarse world.

A few hours later, I take out the meat and bones and pour the liquid through cheesecloth to get rid of the (I'll use the technical kitchen term here) muck. And as I do this I think how nice it would be if life came with cheesecloth so we could strain the muck out when needed. I am beginning to feel a fierce contentment rise as I do this homey, wondrous thing. Not once have I thought about Wall Street greed or banks failing or political blame. But as I begin the great chopping of vegetables, I begin to wonder. Should I have begun this soup? It's taking more time than I remembered.  I'm thinking now about all the things I should be doing and feeling bitter about people like Oprah Winfrey who have personal chefs. My kitchen is a mess, I smell like stock, and I haven't showered. But I add salt and pepper to the pot, plunk the vegetables in, wondering if I added too many. Too late now. I shower as the aroma of My Homemade Soup wafts through the house. Max, my puppy, sniffs the air excitedly. I return to the kitchen, toss Max a little piece of beef -- he's overcome. I taste my soup -- oh, it's good. I actually shout to my husband, "Oh, darling, soup is ready!" I serve it up in big blue bowls; realize all the spoons are dirty; wash two; sit down with Evan, and for a few precious minutes the crazy world seems really not to matter.   

Life With Pie

I made an apple pie today to thank my husband for helping me with my website.  I made the dough from scratch, as always.  This dough is so flaky and thin, it's worth all the anxiety I feel when I begin to roll it out.  In fifteen years of making this pie, I’ve rarely achieved a perfect circle.  The first few times my dough was shaped like Texas, then it began to look like Australia, once when I used very old shortening the dough broke off into little sections resembling the Philippine Islands.  Once my daughter said, “Mom, it looks just like Lebanon,” the shape of which didn’t instantly jump to mind.  Pie making and geography have always been linked for me.

I learned how to make this pie from a friend in Connecticut.  Eugenia had been in a bad accident and lived with chronic pain. Sometimes I could see the pain she carried etched across her face.  But when she made a pie, she was happy.  It takes forever to make an apple pie from scratch, and whenever I do it I feel like I should be wearing a gingham apron and looking out over the back forty watching for Pa to come in from the fields.  My husband came up from his office where he’d been building databases for his clients.  His hands weren’t dirty from working the soil, but his back was sore.  He saw the pie just out of the oven.  His eyes got moist.  

That’s the thing about a pie -- it harkens you back to another time; it calls you to sit down at the table with a big glass of milk and dig in.  It’s not like a cake, and don’t get me wrong, I love cake--but a pie requires more of you -- more of your focus, more of your day, more of your emotions.  You can’t scarf down a piece of pie down standing by the sink or tuck it in a napkin and take it to your room.  That’s messing with the rules of heritage. A piece of pie has to be eaten at a table;  you need to give yourself to the experience. 

My daughter is a fine cook and for years I kept offering to teach her how to make a fruit pie.  “I’m not ready yet,” she’d say.  I suppose it was because she’d been an eyewitness to my dough angst.  But this summer my daughter and I made two pies together --  cherry and blueberry.  From the first roll of her pin, the dough seemed to obey under Jean’s hands.  We had to step over Max my puppy who loves to stretch out in the middle of the kitchen floor and look so cute you just can’t help but give him treats and rub his stomach.  It was one of those blessed afternoons that you want to seal up in plastic and keep forever.  

Eugenia died many years ago, but this is what she gave me.  And every time I make a pie I remember the night I sat in her kitchen and she wouldn’t let me leave until I got it right.  I got home that night at 1 AM proudly toting my first apple pie.  I don’t think we fully understand the power that’s released when we take the time to share something we love.