I Want What Bernie’s Having *aka The Passion Project

*(and Howard Schultz, Oprah, Sting, Warren Buffet and RBG)

We all know that ‘I want what she’s having scene’ from When Harry Met Sally but do you what it really means? It’s not just about Ryan’s character’s feigned orgasm, it’s bigger than that. My take-away is that the majority of us want passion (s) or a passion in a sustaining, life-force, go-the-distance-connects-you-to-everything, life purpose sort of way, vs a one-off. That sort of passion is a rare blessing that generally manifests through difficulty, patience, inquiry or luck. I was lucky to find my passion relatively early and with just the right degree of angst (and time) which makes things feel well-earned. As a writer and professional baker I’ve had the luxury of knowing I’ve been and done exactly what I am good at and trained in. Not only that this career enabled me (first married and then as a single mother) to work from home and raise three sons but I’ve long had that sort of life/career/purpose that has been my North Star and gravitational base for decades. I’ve never taken that blessing for granted until it disappeared a few years ago. Without a warning and somewhat incrementally, I ran out of my passion and it’s conjoined twin: purpose. Both went MIA when I wasn’t paying attention or refused to admit it. When it comes to the world of me, I’m always the last to know. But this confluence of coming of age, empty-nest and the world of publishing changing so dramatically that things would never be the same proved pivotal. Despite the perfect storm all around me, even a whiff of something-not-working in something-that-usually-works is something I will ignore until it absolutely clobbers me with unrelenting anxiety. Some people take their transitions in stride. I fight the bit and reins of life like a wild horse making the discomfort that much harder. But this time, the career malaise was not just about me; it seemed echoed by a similar ennui in most of my peers. When I looked around many friends and colleagues were retiring or retired, some bored or rudderless. It’s was like a collective meme everyone assumed that suggested the best has passed and one has to be pastured if only because of the absence of an obvious encore or third act. It’s possible other people do mind it less than I do unlike me, never had passion to begin with. Either way, it was cold comfort because for the longest time, I’ve never not known what to do nor had sufficient (personal) jet fuel to get it done. And then….I look at Bernie Sander (77) and Howard Schultz (64), both announcing their candidacy for the 2020 Presidential elections, or I look at Warren Buffet (88) still the financial guru of all time, Oprah (65) still passionate about almost everything but especially inner development (just listen to her Soul Sundays podcast), or notice Sting (67) who is starring in his original musical The Last Ship, and I observe Ruth Bader Ginsburg (at 88, still rockin’ the Supreme Court bench) and I’m in awe. These are just a few people who inspire me lately. They are my (age) peers or older and they seem to be diving into this section of their life with the vigor of a thirty-year old. This crew of movers and shakers, seemingly oblivious to the fact they’re not in their prime, somehow they still want to do something. Clearly they didn’t get the same memo as those who are making a life of shopping Costco early in the day and lining up their Netflix dance card. So yes, I want what they’re having.

“You know the Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died; Did he have passion?” (From the movie, Serendipity) Let me back-track a bit. Like a lot of us, I experienced that really uncomfortable 20-something find-yourself malaise, aka the quarter century crisis. In those days, what should I do when I grow up was a big preoccupation especially since it seemed that circa 1976 or so, everyone was off to law or med school, social work, teaching or accounting. Women who wanted to stay home were scorned (why stay home when you could be a rocket scientist?). Feminism in those days was freshly hard-won (in a power suits vs a lean-in sort of way) and was a good thing. I never saw ‘staying home’ as a career but for someone creative and undirected the 70’s feminism was one more pressure to be something (big, high paying and glamourous) or be someone and I had no clue. Millennials certainly didn’t invent FOMO and I suffered from it big time. Being newly married and employed as an administrative assistant for a professor, while boring should have been respectable (and considering I was also attending the same university to get my degree) but it wasn’t. Worse, I was inept at a job that was stultifying but my game plan was that I’d just create a bigger outside-of-work life to compensate. Unfortunately that brilliant plan came to a premature demise when my job was eradicated initiating a long stretch of intense job (and soul) searching. I clearly remember the months seguing to seasons as I looked for work (not a career but merely: work). My then-husband, an engineer, worked for illustrious company after another. And there I was: cleaning house for myself and my young engineer husband, picking up dry cleaning, browsing the classified jobs, looking for chicken on sale and essentially, keeping a low-grade panic at bay. I suppose I should have become a mother at that point but instinctively I knew I needed to find a foothold in life before that next stage. The days sprawled out and time ticked. Nothing is more burdensome than unfulfilled potential. And then one day, in order to do something, anything, I started baking bread. I had baked since I was seven years old but now I looked to bread to ground me, occupy my time and teach me. I started with challah, then whole-wheat loaves and got stuck with rye throughout the winter of 1983. I also made a batch of Apple Buttermilk Muffins that people went wild for that later helped launched my micro-bakery career (which escalated to another chapter called Lawsuit Muffins which you can check out here:

https://tinyurl.com/y3aq9vxz) Story and recipe

During that fateful winter I also got a huge case of the flu that went on for weeks taking my unemployed malaise into a true funk. Feeling invisible even to myself I realized I had to go out and do something/anything, the flu notwithstanding. There happened to be a Christmas baking class at a department store and for some reason, it appealed (albeit I’m Jewish). I bundled up with a zillion wool scarves and toque, braved the cold, and went. Because there was a massive snow storm that day only four people showed up but the plucky baking demonstrator began her spiel. Pretty soon, the sterile department store smelled like butter and vanilla. My heart quickened; immediately I was smitten. I literally fell in love. I thought of my bread-baking at home and looked at her beautifully baked Cinnamon Sticks and Cranberry Buns and thought: This is exactly what I want to do and I will have to make this happen. I want to bake for a living or be in food. It was a true epiphany.

Like many people, I had mistaken my passion as a hobby because it was so fun, so natural and also because unlike engineering, law or medicine, ‘food’ is a hybrid field without clear channels to follow. Consequently, I had not noticed who I was meant to be, which was (and is), a writer but also, the village baker. I just knew this was my calling and my home and finding home is an unbeatable feeling. The Apple Buttermilk Muffins became my signature recipe when I started catering cafes, along with carrot and cheesecakes. I launched my micro bakery in my rented apartment, avoiding my landlord’s dark looks as I hauled industrial sized bags of flour upstairs. Then I rented a real bakery; when orders escalated, I found both a new and bigger bakery and a chef to produce my cakes. One day, I wanted to be better at what I did and I applied to hotel school and spent three years (while baking and supplying cakes) becoming a full-fledged professional pastry chef. One day, pregnant, nauseous and delivering chocolate buttermilk and California cheesecakes, I pondered the road ahead. Should I put the unborn child in daycare and borrow 100 K and start a ‘real’ bakery? I couldn’t see it. For one thing, I saw production baking as a ‘bake a cake, sell a cake, bake a cake, repeat’ sort of life and the writer in me balked. I never fancied myself the next Mrs. Fields or Sara Lee. And then I read the local newspaper food section and realized: I bake, I write: I could freelance and do food features. I broke the New York Times with a Montreal Bagel piece in 1987 and once my third son was in nursery school, I pitched my first cookbook to Doubleday and started my cookbook career. Then the Internet came along and I launched my website (www.Betterbaking.com) to compliment my cookbook publishing and also fulfill my dream of having my own baking and lifestyle magazine. Betterbaking.com has now been online over 21 years! It’s never been easy but it’s been what I was meant to do and I felt it every step of the way.

When things shifted I couldn’t sell a cookbook for love or money. I felt ousted out of Camelot. Publishers and agents disappeared. Did I lack enough platform or celebrity? Who knows — it certainly wasn’t because I wrote bad cookbooks that no one bought because my books sold well. I turned to self-publishing which is where this feature finds me. (I just launched my newest cookbook, The Newish Jewish Cookbook

I’d like to report that I’ve the day by self-publishing my black and white cookbooks but sales are modest. While the day isn’t done, the jury is out regarding this being a viable pathway or vanity project which I guess you can say about all artistic endeavours. But whatever this battle of art and income is, working so hard for dubious reward takes its toll. I know what I can do and what I like to do but also know it might be back to the drawing board and time to take stock. Because I want that passion back and I want to fall in love with my life and work again. Passion is an innate blessing but like a viable sourdough starter, it must be fed for it to thrive. I might not want to run for 2020 Presidency, manage Berkshire Hathaway, interview the Dali Lama or stage a musical about baking called A La Carte (actually that I do want to do; the bare bones of that is in my office drawer). I might just want to launch my own book club, teach entrepreneurs about self-publishing or maybe walk away from cakes and cookbooks and write the novel that’s screeching to emerge so much so that it’s put bad juju on my cookbook career. I don’t know.

So yes, I still do have a passion like Bernie, Howard, Oprah, Ruth, Sting, Warren et al. And cherishing that passion, however off course it feels right now, and seeing these peers also strive convinces me it’s not about age. Here’s the thing: ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, this is just how life works. That 20-something malaise of ‘what shall I do when I grow up?” has revisited. The good news and bad news is: no matter how old (and wise) you are, you never arrive (bad news) and you are, forever and always (good news) ever green.

But I know just how smart I can be once I surrender, have faith and stay still long enough to allow the lightbulb moment to come again like that exact moment when a sneezy, flu-ridden, rudderless, middle-class Jewish girl attended that Christmas baking class in a Montreal department store and she lit up with visions of sugar plums and dancing cupcakes, and copious words about the magic of wheat. Oh and btw — here’s what the newest cookbook looks like and the link to buy it. My own publishing imprint is called River Heart Press because rivers, much like the heart, are healthiest when they run wild, free and organically. Much like passion itself.