Bake Break, Days 7+8: Showing Up Empty-Handed

Days 7 and 8 have included a lot of events . . . events to which I normally would have brought dessert. It's become a habit of mine, you see, to show up to dinners, meetings, etc. baring some sort of baked confection. This little habit of mine is one that I developed when I moved to Utah.

When a new church starts, there are a lot of potlucks and small gatherings. And when you tell people you bake all day long, it is kind of expected that the thing you'll bring is dessert. When the potlucks stopped, the baking increased. As my love and passion for creating recipes grew, so did this idea I'd created that people expected dessert whenever I showed up some place, even if it was just to someone's house for a chat or to have dinner.

This habit of mine developed into an obsession to never show up anywhere that I'd be getting something out of my interaction without holding some sort of baked good. But, as I have learned, people are probably willing to talk through something with you or have you over for dinner simply because they enjoy spending time with you, and not because they expect you to have brought them cookies. I'm not saying that you can't ever bring cookies to your neighbors again, just that there is a balance between serving others and allowing them to serve you . . . a balance I am myself just working out.

Not being able to bake for the past week has not stopped the dinners, parties, and get-togethers. So, in that time, I have had to try to be okay with allowing others to serve me by inviting me into their homes, with out the presence of a cake box in hand. And, even though the Bake Break will be over in a couple of days, I have a feeling that the discipline of showing up empty-handed will be one that extends far further than the confines of these 10 days.