Although I’m here today talking about cake, it doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about The State of the World—because of course I am, just like you are, because how could you not? Since this entire %#!*#$! year began (to borrow some lingo from an Archie comic if you will, as I am a delicate, ladylike flower and prefer not to let loose a stream of real expletives here), I’ve been constantly recalibrating and readjusting my ability and desire to interface with the world at large.
Some weeks I’ve refused to read the news at all. I deleted my Instagram account (the only social media account I do have) for weeks, picking up my phone only to call my mom and check the Dark Sky weather app and listen to comforting podcasts about cooking during the 30 minute-feeding-the-baby increments.
Even when I’m narrowing the scope of my days to the living room / the nursery / the pile of unfolded laundry / the two-minute walk to the marina to see the big yachts / the impossibly soft skin under the baby’s chin, I still consume information somehow. It filters into my life like sunlight through a curtain—even when closed, some gets in. I bump into neighbors who chat about The World, I overhear snatches of conversation about The World from Zoom calls behind the closed office door, I call friends and they bring up The World.
I don’t think it’s an all or nothing proposition—nor is there a right or a wrong approach. I suppose I am trying to remember that the immediacy of information that is such a hallmark of modern life is new—it wasn’t always this way. And I don’t think we’re designed to absorb so much at such a rapid clip.
Of course I believe it’s important to be informed—be the subject politics or public health or social justice or history. And beyond the big topics, it’s good to know what makes up the world. It’s good to understand and witness the breadth of human experience and to participate in it all.
But that doesn’t mean that the instant a politician makes an explosive statement at a speech in Iowa or a scandal emerges in the US-China tech feud I need to read about it and discuss it and form an opinion on it. It can wait two hours, or four, or eight. It will still be there in the morning.
The latest virus numbers will still be there too, if instead of checking on them every hour on the hour, instead I take a long walk through the leafy streets, the early October sunlight warming my cheeks and my bare shoulders, the breeze ruffling my loose hair and tickling the baby’s toes so he chortles happily. The news will wait while I pause to lean down to pinch his cheeks and pass him a silicone triangle teether, upon which he proceeds to gum furiously while we make our way to the Sixth Street beach.
The World won’t change fundamentally while I ride my bike out to the narrow causeway that separates the bay from the sound, turning my head to the left to see six snowy white egrets picking their way delicately through the long grass at the edge of the tidal marsh, then to the right to see the very tip of a lighthouse miles away, just barely visible at the edge of a sea of glimmering blue water.
I can make dinner—crispy tofu coated in rice flour and sautéed with whole dried chiles until golden, then tossed with steamed broccoli and a slurry of arrowroot powder, tamari, orange juice, garlic, brown sugar, ketchup, and rice wine vinegar and spooned over brown rice—and I can watch an old episode of season 1 of Smash and I can leaf through an old Gourmet magazine. The World will carry on.
I can go jump off the dock into the bracingly cold water in my bra and shorts, then jog back to the house while waving at the couple out walking their dog who shout “Are you nuts?! Is it freezing?” and do a quick set of kettlebells before peeling off my wet clothes and gingerly tip-toeing up to the shower. The news will still exist.
I can read Jamberry out loud twice (one of my favorite children’s books), making my voice extra jaunty at the “Raspberry, Jazzberry, Razza-matazz-berry!” line, then attempt a quick few pages of The Magic Hat Shop before someone gets too wriggly and demands to be tossed in the air and sung old Crystal Gayle songs to, loudly and with my very best vibrato.
I can make the bed and finally hang up a few framed childhood photos of me and my three sisters and deliver a batch of vegan brown sugar blueberry muffins to my friend Bridget who just moved in to the house three doors down, carefully nestling them in a box with a note taped to the top on my favorite stationery with a gold P engraved on top.
I can take an evening walk to see the full moon casting its glistening amber glow upon the still water, illuminating the inky darkness with shimmering, shifting light.
And after all of that (or during, or in between, or not at all), I can think about The State of the World. About schools and whether to fly on an airplane and Covid-19 and the presidential debate and how to raise strong, brave children and what needs to be done to get more smart young people into politics and where should I donate money and environmental issues and eating less meat and what kind of probiotics to take and how to see friends and the best way to spend more time with my family and WHEW.
It’s still there. And I will think about it all and make decisions when I need to and read both funny and serious new articles and engage with the world.
But I think that living deliberately in the present, close at hand, and cultivating peaceful and happy days—not in spite of The State of the World, but alongside it—is contributing something important. Sometimes I picture us all with a little circle drawn around us, moving through our days—the angrier and more reactive and hyped-up we are, the darker our circle is. The more laughter and optimism and intelligence and encouragement of others to believe that the world is what we choose to make of it, the brighter it grows. If we all believed that you don’t have to accept the rhetoric that we’re, pardon my French, fucked in a lot of ways…it seems all of our circles would lighten, and thus the entire world would too.
The POINT IS that you can excuse yourself from the frenetic THINKING and EMOTION of it all for a bit and make a cake and the world will not fall apart for it. It’s not your own mental energy keeping things chugging along—I promise that someone else will pick up the slack of discussing the finer points of election strategy and voter intimidation and the Tokyo stock exchange trading glitch.
Note: This cake uses Greek yogurt—I’ve used both nonfat and 2% and whole milk yogurt all to great success, so use whatever you’ve got. If you only have sour cream, that will do as well, though the cake will be richer.
Marble Loaf CakeMakes one 9” x 5” loaf
3 eggs
1 cup (198g) sugar
1 cup (285g) Greek yogurt
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan.
In the bowl of a stand mixer (you can do this by hand but it’ll take a lot of elbow grease), beat together the eggs and sugar until very pale in color, about 5 minutes on medium-high speed.
Add the yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla and whisk until just combined.
Fold in the flour, baking, powder, and salt, mixing until just combined.
Pour about 1/3 of the batter into a separate bowl and whisk in the cocoa powder and espresso powder until evenly mixed.
Pour half of the remaining vanilla batter into the prepared pan. Scoop big dollops of the chocolate batter over the top of the vanilla batter, then pour the remaining vanilla batter on top and gently smooth the top.
(If you want, you can sprinkle some raw sugar over the top—I didn’t do this but it is NOT EVER A BAD IDEA with loaf cakes.)
Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out with no wet batter clinging to it.
Let cool for about 15 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.