It calms me, it makes me happy, and sure sometimes it challenges me too! Being stuck at home these last 6 months has given me the opportunity to hone in on my skills and reignite my passion for baking. I have this wonderfully large kitchen now, and I need to use it. I was so caught up in work and working out, that any free time I had, I would spend being lazy.
For the better part of my late 20s and all of my 30s I lived in San Francisco, the city by the bay!! During this time, I lived in two different studios. The first one was on the border of Nob Hill and Chinatown. My building was catty-cornered to the Cable Car Museum, and two different lines for cable cars crossed right in front of my building. Luckily for me, my apartment did not face the street, but a small courtyard facing other nearby buildings. I thought I struck gold when I found this place. Sure, all it had was the living/sleeping space, a kitchen and a bathroom. But the kitchen, was a full size eat in kitchen. Let me repeat in case you missed it, a studio with a full size kitchen, and oh yeah, also enough space for a table for 4! A full size refridgerator, and a full size oven. It truly doesn’t get better than that! My first slice of San Francisco heaven. But good things don’t always last! After a few years there, my management company closed and sold the building to another more high profile company, that came in and decided they needed to increase rent, to almost double. That would not work for me, so I was off in search of another slice of SF heaven. When you have it as good as I had it, every new place you look at, especially when it came to the kitchens, just didn’t cut it. But I had to find a place soon, or end up paying way too much for not so much. Finally! I found something I could work with. As I think back, I realize how I made a small kitchen work wonders. The kitchen was the size of a personal bathroom. Very small, not much space. Plenty cabinet space, a small full size refridgerator, and what looked like a toy oven. At first I thought it was a joke or something, but soon realized, small ovens, that only fit a quarter size sheet pan do exist! And lucky me, I had one! Needless to say, I am now the owner of a half dozen quarter size sheet pans. The apartment itself was perfect. It had a large walk in closet; so dresser, clothes, shoes and extra storage all fit. A small foyer area, about half the size of the kitchen; a good size bathroom and shower/tub combo. And the living space was large and square. So it was quite easy and possible to move furniture around every so often to change things up. I was about a few years in when I finally found the furniture set up that worked best for me. That included a space just out of the kitchen that I used for kitchen prep work. It was was perfect, I would bake or cook and have space to move about, and I could watch TV at the same time.
I think about those days often lately, and think how amazed I am at myself for adjusting to my surroundings, to be able to do something that made me feel good. My therapy! The thing of it is, if I we’re still there now, I might be going crazy. I would not be able to see anyone, my family would be thousands of miles away, and I would still be temporarily out of a job. I am truly happy where I am at now. But I can still miss things!
Funny thing, even in SF, my daily routine was wake up, work, workout, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep and then do it all over again. Even in SF, the city I moved to, to learn more about baking, I fell into a rhythm where I didn’t spend as much time baking as I wanted to. I lost touch with something I truly loved. Sure I would bake, but typically just for special occations, not so much just to bake and get better. I guess the only difference now, is I so have more space, to work more on specific techniques and try recipes than otherwise are likely easier in a larger space. It’s amazing how being quarantined to your house, can awaken hobbies that you may have otherwise pushed aside. Whenever I go back to work, I just need to find a new routine that where baking is as important as an after work workout. No more sleeping thru the weekends, ha!
I truly hope you enjoy the stories I share with you, along with my baking adventures as I continue to learn as I go forward.
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