baking

The Great British Bake Off  is currently saving my mental health. Whatever ugliness is going on in the world, however terrible the news reports are, no matter what horrific new tragedies of humanity and planet are being perpetrated, it takes only that jaunty opening credit music to help my shoulders descend from around my ears, and my teeth unclench, and my breathing to slow.

As much as I’m a fan of all the bite-sized candy and sweets Halloween brings, this year I’m planning on celebrating the spookiest season with a bigger treat: 3-D pumpkins, skulls, and tombstones all made of cake. And it’s going to be as easy as reaching for a box of cake mix.

It's the middle of May, which means that, theoretically, we should just be a few short weeks away from the glories of summer, but in reality, at least up here in New York City, we're still dealing with spring storms and long, grey days. Times like this make me feel like a vacation. And even when an actual trip, say, down to Florida or over to California isn't logistically possible, it still lifts my spirits to try to bring a little bit of vacation into my life. Maybe that's just reading the kind of detective book I usually read by the pool, or eating too much pineapple.