pearls.
I have this unrealistic idea about myself, which is that I can probably do anything I set out to do. Of course, our parents and teachers wanted us to believe this, but most of us know it's not really true. Most of us. So one day while watching a reality show about fancy cake bakers, I thought, "How hard can that be? I can do that." I purchased a good cookbook, a few supplies, and set out to make the first fancy cupcake: a simple pink top with a black bow.
On Sunday I baked vanilla cupcakes and whipped up a large batch of white chocolate ganache. On Monday I spread the ganache over the tops of the cupcakes. And last night, I applied the icing, using a syrup I made with boiling water and apricot jam. The book strongly favors purchasing ready-made fondant, as the consistency is hard to get just right. And since I'm a beginner, and had made everything else, I was happy to buy a box of 4 packages of fondant, already colored. All I had to do was roll it out, cut, and stick on the tops of the cupcakes with syrup (still a lot of work considering the fondant is ready-made!). The design called for pink and black, but I couldn't find a package with these colors. I found one with skin tones (which creeped me out), one with pastels (baby style), and one with neon pink, orange, yellow, and purple (close enough). I could have purchased ready-made white, and added food coloring, but we had just cleaned the kitchen again (by "we" I mean my husband), and I didn't want to make another mess. So I brought home the neon.
The instructions for adding the icing were simple: roll out the fondant to 1/8" thickness, cut with a cookie cutter the same size as the cupcake, brush the top with syrup, and stick on the fondant disc. My problem was that middle part: the same size as the cupcake. I had a smaller circle, which I would have had to stretch, and a bigger circle, which I would have had to cut (and which would have helped me practice the technique of trimming fondant). So I dug around in my basket of cookie cutters and found a shell shape that was roughly the same size as the cupcake, and was prettier than a circle because of the scalloped edges.
Once I cut out the shells and stuck them on with syrup, I had second thoughts. They were so clearly shells. At first I thought, "Whatever! Just finish the stupid cupcakes!" and was ready to make the bows. But then the artist in me sighed deeply, reminding me that in no context, under no circumstances, would it make sense to put a bow on a shell.
*
While I rolled, cut, and applied fondant to my cupcakes, I talked on the phone with a dear friend I hadn't talked to in several months. During that time, she'd gotten pregnant, had a miscarriage, still hadn't heard about a job she'd interviewed for in September, and started a new business venture. We talked through the pain she had suffered, both physically and emotionally, her frustration about the job, and also about her excitement about the future. She was still happy about the thought of being a mom. And she was confident that she could make this new business work (as am I - she is one of the smartest people I know). Part of her start-up included a training, with incentives for making a certain number of practice sales calls. "If I make 6 calls I get a strand of pearls. And I love pearls - so what's a few phone calls?"
She was amazing, in the true, undiluted sense of the word. After a devastating loss, for which she had no precedent to learn from, she had simply improvised. Focused on something new. Saw a shiny pearl in the future instead of a "what now?" sense of misery. While she talked, I kept thinking how proud I was to be her friend. And I told her she could make a practice sales call on me. I wanted her to have those pearls.
*
When it was my time to fill her in on life over the past few months, I didn't know where to start. She'd known about my grandfather's illness and death, but I had shied away from most of my friends during that time. It was easy to have a superficial conversation with a coworker, but impossible to re-live each tiring, emotionally draining day over the phone with a close friend. So I said, "We're figuring out our life here now." My grandfather was already in the hospital by the time we moved back to Boston, so since our arrival our lives have revolved around visits to the hospital, dinners with my grandmother, trips to the airport to pick up family, reunions with cousins and friends of the family, endless discussions and questions like, "Is this really happening?"
Just four days after Grampy died, my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Hi, Syndey! Can you read yet?). This new life captivated a family full of grieving adults, and we had to figure out how to say goodbye while also saying hello. With a niece just a short drive away, our life in Boston has again changed. I spent Monday on my sister's couch, holding the baby, feeding the baby, changing the baby's diaper. I kept telling her how much fun we were going to have, and how I loved being her auntie. This new life came at exactly the right time; while we figure out life without Grampy, we are learning life with Sydney. It's an exchange both haunting and beautiful.
*
I hung up the phone, grateful for the 11 years of friendship we've shared, and feeling wonderfully hopeful about her future, both in business and motherhood. No matter where she is or what she does, she always shines. But I had to finish the cupcakes, which were now just pink shells, a far cry from the polished bow-tied cupcakes in the book. They were empty, and boring, and so clearly born out of a mistake, or a misjudgment, or simply not having the right tools for the job. The shell wasn't planned, but now there it was. I had improvised, but I couldn't stop there. One new step is not enough. I needed to take more new steps - as many as it took - to the new destination. I thought about Grampy. And baby Sydney. And about my friend's hope for the future. I thought about her love for pearls, the beautiful product of the objectively ugly, smelly oyster. It was obvious then. These cupcakes wouldn't be tied up with a neat little bow, as if everything had gone according to plan. They would get a tiny piece of yellow fondant, rolled into a ball in the palm of my hand, dabbed in water to stick to the shell, and glossed with syrup to really make them shine.
On Sunday I baked vanilla cupcakes and whipped up a large batch of white chocolate ganache. On Monday I spread the ganache over the tops of the cupcakes. And last night, I applied the icing, using a syrup I made with boiling water and apricot jam. The book strongly favors purchasing ready-made fondant, as the consistency is hard to get just right. And since I'm a beginner, and had made everything else, I was happy to buy a box of 4 packages of fondant, already colored. All I had to do was roll it out, cut, and stick on the tops of the cupcakes with syrup (still a lot of work considering the fondant is ready-made!). The design called for pink and black, but I couldn't find a package with these colors. I found one with skin tones (which creeped me out), one with pastels (baby style), and one with neon pink, orange, yellow, and purple (close enough). I could have purchased ready-made white, and added food coloring, but we had just cleaned the kitchen again (by "we" I mean my husband), and I didn't want to make another mess. So I brought home the neon.
The instructions for adding the icing were simple: roll out the fondant to 1/8" thickness, cut with a cookie cutter the same size as the cupcake, brush the top with syrup, and stick on the fondant disc. My problem was that middle part: the same size as the cupcake. I had a smaller circle, which I would have had to stretch, and a bigger circle, which I would have had to cut (and which would have helped me practice the technique of trimming fondant). So I dug around in my basket of cookie cutters and found a shell shape that was roughly the same size as the cupcake, and was prettier than a circle because of the scalloped edges.
Once I cut out the shells and stuck them on with syrup, I had second thoughts. They were so clearly shells. At first I thought, "Whatever! Just finish the stupid cupcakes!" and was ready to make the bows. But then the artist in me sighed deeply, reminding me that in no context, under no circumstances, would it make sense to put a bow on a shell.
*
While I rolled, cut, and applied fondant to my cupcakes, I talked on the phone with a dear friend I hadn't talked to in several months. During that time, she'd gotten pregnant, had a miscarriage, still hadn't heard about a job she'd interviewed for in September, and started a new business venture. We talked through the pain she had suffered, both physically and emotionally, her frustration about the job, and also about her excitement about the future. She was still happy about the thought of being a mom. And she was confident that she could make this new business work (as am I - she is one of the smartest people I know). Part of her start-up included a training, with incentives for making a certain number of practice sales calls. "If I make 6 calls I get a strand of pearls. And I love pearls - so what's a few phone calls?"
She was amazing, in the true, undiluted sense of the word. After a devastating loss, for which she had no precedent to learn from, she had simply improvised. Focused on something new. Saw a shiny pearl in the future instead of a "what now?" sense of misery. While she talked, I kept thinking how proud I was to be her friend. And I told her she could make a practice sales call on me. I wanted her to have those pearls.
*
When it was my time to fill her in on life over the past few months, I didn't know where to start. She'd known about my grandfather's illness and death, but I had shied away from most of my friends during that time. It was easy to have a superficial conversation with a coworker, but impossible to re-live each tiring, emotionally draining day over the phone with a close friend. So I said, "We're figuring out our life here now." My grandfather was already in the hospital by the time we moved back to Boston, so since our arrival our lives have revolved around visits to the hospital, dinners with my grandmother, trips to the airport to pick up family, reunions with cousins and friends of the family, endless discussions and questions like, "Is this really happening?"
Just four days after Grampy died, my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Hi, Syndey! Can you read yet?). This new life captivated a family full of grieving adults, and we had to figure out how to say goodbye while also saying hello. With a niece just a short drive away, our life in Boston has again changed. I spent Monday on my sister's couch, holding the baby, feeding the baby, changing the baby's diaper. I kept telling her how much fun we were going to have, and how I loved being her auntie. This new life came at exactly the right time; while we figure out life without Grampy, we are learning life with Sydney. It's an exchange both haunting and beautiful.
*
I hung up the phone, grateful for the 11 years of friendship we've shared, and feeling wonderfully hopeful about her future, both in business and motherhood. No matter where she is or what she does, she always shines. But I had to finish the cupcakes, which were now just pink shells, a far cry from the polished bow-tied cupcakes in the book. They were empty, and boring, and so clearly born out of a mistake, or a misjudgment, or simply not having the right tools for the job. The shell wasn't planned, but now there it was. I had improvised, but I couldn't stop there. One new step is not enough. I needed to take more new steps - as many as it took - to the new destination. I thought about Grampy. And baby Sydney. And about my friend's hope for the future. I thought about her love for pearls, the beautiful product of the objectively ugly, smelly oyster. It was obvious then. These cupcakes wouldn't be tied up with a neat little bow, as if everything had gone according to plan. They would get a tiny piece of yellow fondant, rolled into a ball in the palm of my hand, dabbed in water to stick to the shell, and glossed with syrup to really make them shine.
