Let the Ranting Begin ~ A Baker’s Lament

[Editor’s Note: I’ve had plenty of guest bloggers here recently, but none of them were badass mercenaries.  This one is.  Rutabaga the Mercenary Researcher is just that.  And she is so competent at her job that she found me out on Facebook without much to go on.  She’s that good.

She and I have become fast friends and I’m extremely envious of her talent with written words.  I’m sure you will be, too.  As always, please visit her blog when you’re finished reading her masterpiece here and click the almighty FOLLOW button so you can have mercenary badassery delivered straight to your inbox.]

Um…well, here I am.  This is kind of weird for me. I’ve never been a guest-lamenter before.

You see, the other day I was talking with Twindaddy – well, letting him know that I was somewhat envious of the amount of content that zings around his massive brain and shows up on his blog.  So we had some back and forth about it – and I revealed that I have quite a bit zinging around my (less) massive brain as well, but my blog is not anonymous – so a lot of stuff that I want to write about, I sort of can’t… Well, I could – but I risk offending and possibly losing friendships/family relationships because of it.   Twindaddy, the epitome of a gentleman, offered up his space for my emotional purging.   How sweet and generous is that?  You know the answer – it’s pretty damn effin’ fine, is what it is.

So here I am.  Like I said – this is kind of weird.  It is one thing to fill up your own space with ‘trite’ but it’s a different ball o’wax to do it elsewhere.  I thank you Twindaddy and hope I can write something worthy of your Storm-trooper Awesomeness.

The Baker’s Lament

So here’s the deal, I’m a baker. I used to be a professional baker at a trendy hippie restaurant for several years; and now I bake as an avocation. I love to bring baked goods to any potluck and I often offer to make birthday cakes for my friends. I do it, not because I want to be the only one baking or basking in the glory of happy eaters, but because my friends do so much for me and this is how I can give something back to them.  I bake out of love and it brings me joy – on many levels.  And ok, I like basking in the glory of happy eaters!

However, I feel really sad and somewhat horrified when I hear people tell me that they don’t want to bring a baked item to a party or gathering I’m at because they feel I’m going to judge them or something. I have NEVER EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER made a disparaging remark about anyone’s baking – I love trying other creations from people.  I don’t care if you make it from a box or from scratch.  I love making baked goods and I love EATING baked goods.  There’s room in world for a multitude of bakers as far as I’m concerned.  And I’m not into one-upmanship.

But here’s where my heart broke.  We went to a birthday potluck recently and the birthday person sent me a recipe with a cute “yes, please”…so I made it prior to the party and we tested it – it was fabbo. So I asked if I should make it for the adult party on Friday or the Family party on Sunday (which was a potluck). Birthday person said “doesn’t matter – it’s up to you.”   So I decided to double the recipe and bring it on Friday and then have it for Sunday.

So we eat some of it on Friday and I tell birthday person it’s for Sunday as well. Then Sunday rolls around and I’m helping set up for the party and whatnot…I notice that she is putting out the food people have started bringing; she’s putting out some brownies and I said “oh – are there still some of the brownies from Friday left?” and she says “yes, but we’re enjoying “Jill’s” recipe tonight”.  I was crushed.  I’m still crushed.  And it wasn’t as if that was the main birthday goodie – there was a cake for later. This was just general food on the buffet.   I’ve never had something I brought to a potluck rejected.

So am I being too sensitive? Should I have asked why she did that? Should I just let it go? I feel like I don’t want to bring goodies over there anymore. Sigh…

Thank you for letting me get this off my chest, Twindaddy ~ I hope it wasn’t too trite.