If life is a bakery, I am zucchini bread.
Is it a teaspoon or a tablespoon of salt? Did I already add baking soda? Where’s the measuring cup I’m pretty sure I just used? Am I doing this right? Is it really 2 cups of sugar? How is it already 9:42 on a school night?
At least recipes are easy. Unlike in my home kitchen, the human experience has no recipe. No guidelines. Yet, I am the product. I am the ingredients. The kitchen air still smells of ground cinnamon and vanilla extract as I mix in the garden-grown, freshly shredded, juicy zucchini. I recognize that all the moisture comes from a vegetable rather than water or whatever canola oil is.
Why does it work? It’s original. In the way that no recipes are exactly the same, my experience is completely unique. Likewise, flour, sugar, and eggs are not bread yet. They have no structure, no warmth. All pastries have these common ingredients, but each individual in a batch or baker’s dozen is inherently exceptional.
Before I can be myself, I must know my ingredients. I need to bake. The same aromas of cinnamon and zucchini return, but this time, they’re stronger than ever. All 325 degrees slap me in the face at once, as I prematurely check the progress. In order to rise, what was a gooey mass must endure the raging inferno that is an oven.
This metamorphosis reminds me that in order to find myself, I must struggle and face hardships. It takes time to become who I want to be and avoid having a raw center, so I might be stuck baking my entire life.
But sometimes to bake is to be self-critical. Self-motivated. To bake is to own up to mistakes and carry on anyway. I want to be enjoyed. I shut off the oven timer for the fifth time, and I realize I’m done.
The speckled, crispy brown surface radiates in perfection as I offer a piece of zucchini bread to my younger sister. But she refuses. Why does she not want to stuff her face with pure, warm goodness? Well, as it turns out, not everyone prefers to eat a vegetable impersonating a baked good.
Just like this loaf, I exist as myself anyway; it’s too late in the process to change who I am to fit someone else’s preferences. Some people only want regular, white bread. Some may only like red velvet cheesecake. Regardless, I will never be everyone’s cup of...sugar.
In a world full of cookies, other pastries, and sweets, I strive to be vegetable-based. I have found that I am happier as myself than what others want me to be. I place my worth in my own hands rather than obsessing over the opinions of others.
So: what does it mean to be zucchini bread? I believe it means to be myself and to love every ingredient to the fullest extent.
