When in doubt, add lemon.

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.” – Laurie Colwin

Today was hard.  Things around here have not been easy – uncertainty is the backing track of my days right now – but up until today I was holding it together.  Then I caught the last twenty minutes of ‘Hope Floats’ while I ate my lunch and like a good cliche, ended up on the couch in tears.

Alone, unsure, unhappy, I sat afterward wondering what to do next.  Staring off into space was the most useful thing I could make myself do. You can know everything about how to feel better, but when you are in the middle of feeling sad, it’s so much easier to let yourself wallow.

So what was a girl to do? For some reason the only thing I could think of doing was baking. (This is very unlike me.) And lemon loaf, for some reason, was the thing I wanted most.  As soon as I started zesting the first lemon, I could feel myself shaking free of the funk.  The smell of the zest, and sting of the juice on my fingers, the alchemy of combining  and the strict rules of the recipe pulled my focus from my navel to the task at hand.

Lemons, it seems, are the answers to the question of what to do when you can’t do anything.  Sharp, bright, needy and vibrant, they force energy in where energy isn’t.  So that’s what I think I will do from now on: when in doubt, add lemon.

Would you like to come over for fresh lemon loaf and a cup of tea?  They are both still warm.

(photo by Leslie of A Creative Mint)