the secret war continues

i refused to touch, or have anything to do, with flour and yeast for a year.

i discovered that i didn't have a knack for baking. i remember how embarrassed i was when i first made my pizza dough. (ugh! okay, i want to erase that memory) but i didn't take the hint that time. i baked a bread which turned out to be more disastrous than the pizza dough. although i completely shrank into my bones when Kjersti found it out, i managed to laugh it off with her. she made me feel better by saying that "it's not you, Joan. it's the yeast". aha!

so i didn't give up. i refused to give up. i wouldn't just throw my hands up in the air and surrender to the curse of the yeast...and flour. it became an obsession. an obsession to win the battle over those molecules that turn into bread, cakes and pastries, when handled by the right person.

but after a couple of months of making a stone-bread out of yeast and flour, i finally took the hint. i lost the battle. i accepted my defeat whole-heartedly. from then on, i would just nod at the box of yeast and flour everytime i open the cupboard. i can just imagine those molecules grinning at me! hmp!

it has been, more or less, a year now, since the battle ended. but last thursday, i accidentally came into the baking page of my menu guide and i suddenly felt the urge to start a fight! then and there, i asked aby if i could spend the friday night at her place and bake a cake. she immediately agreed. oh, i was excited!

facing the war with my arch-enemies just gave me an adrenaline rush! i was restless. i was energized and hopping all day. so when evening came, and kjersti and finn-einar were home, i put on my best "homey" dress and walked down to the battlefield.

first things first: i dropped by aby's place and we went to the shop together. i meticulously chose the ingredients to the simplest chocolate cake recipe that i found on the menu guide. half-mindedly talking to myself, aby and the boxes of granulated sugar as we go through the aisle for the baking stuffs at the grocers. half of my mind was trying to picture out how the chocolate cake would look like when it's all done. i smiled.

so, when we had everything that we needed in the cart, we paid for it and went back to Walhalla, where the battle took place. (grin!)

i totally made the kitchen looked like a battlefield. in fairness, i handled all the ingredients with extra care. i mixed this and that and poured my heart and love into it. just like a real warrior ; )

with the oven set to 175 degrees, i poured the mixture from the mixing bowl to the cake former and put it in the oven and took a rest for 20 minutes, as i await for the result.

i danced my jitterness off. 35 minutes was like a lifetime. so when my timer rang, i literally ran to the kitchen and opened the oven! my hyperactivity melted down as fast as a shooting star appears and disappears in my sight when i saw what's in the cake former. i got disoriented. it wasn't the cake that i pictured out in my mind. i even wondered if it was a cake at all. it was....indescribable! i wouldn't and i couldn't even touch it. so i just stared at it.

aby noticed my silence and came to the kitchen. when she saw what i was looking at, she burst into a hideous laughter. her laughter awakened me and i snapped back into reality. i pulled out the cake former from the oven, set it into the counter and stared at it again, unbelievingly! then i let out a tummy-aching laughter too. aby and i tried to describe it. i meant the "cake". it looked like a volcano which erupted, and then you can see the crater. no! it looked like the moon! no! oh! it was anything but a cake!

when our laughters subsided, i stared at the "cake" again and knowingly accepted my defeat. as i threw it out in the waste basket, i resolved to myself, that i will never, ever, start a fight, which i know, i am bound to loose. there are wars that are worth fighting for. and the battle with yeast and flour is not one of them.