# 232: Is That a Heart on Your Sleeve?

Baking Therapy and Emotional Contagion in the Kitchen, a recipe for a favorite spring salad, and what I'm reading in today's issue.

Baking Therapy and Emotional Contagion in the Kitchen

I would imagine that if you have been reading my newsletter for a while now, you probably know that cooking and baking for my family and friends brings me great joy. Though my kitchen is pretty darn small, it is my favorite room of the house. It’s a refuge for me and I find food to be a big way to express the feelings inside of me, especially so when words don’t come close.

I don’t recall the term “baking therapy” being used decades ago, but I do think I engaged in that practice from an early age. I remember retreating to the kitchen at the age of nine to make cookies after my dad had his first serious health crisis, and I cooked and baked for days after my daughter Sara passed away. It was my solace.

It hasn’t all been sad times as there have been many wonderfully happy ones, too. On the day my wuzband¹, son, and I moved into the post and beam house we had been building for over five years, I christened the new oven in my beautiful kitchen by baking bread and making soup.

My happy place in the kitchen at the post and beam house.

With this simple act, our house was no longer just wood, windows, wires and pipes. Now it had become a home and I saw my joy mirrored in the faces of family and friends who gathered to celebrate with us at our housewarming that same afternoon. This mirroring, I learned, is a form of Emotional Contagion, a phenomenon in which the observed behavior of one person leads another person to the same behavior without any conscious thought. We “read” the look on the face of another and take it on ourselves, returning the smile of a stranger, the giggle of a baby, the tears of a friend.

60 Years: 60 Pies

In Art of the Pie, I share the story of Rex who decided to celebrate sixty years of life by making sixty pies, more than one each week, before his next birthday rolled around and how much that meant to both him and to me. After his class, we stayed in touch for some years but then my emails came back as undeliverable. In 2017, I met Rex’s long-time partner Vince when he attended a two-day pie-baking course I was teaching at King Arthur Baking School. On the first day, I was heartbroken to learn that Rex had passed away just one week shy of his retirement. Tears welled up in Vince’s eyes and mine, too, as he shared with me how making and sharing pie had meant so much to Rex.

Rex in his happy place at a 2010 Art of the Pie workshop. (Photo by me)

That Vince was carrying on his partner’s pie making legacy seemed such a wonderful way to honor him. On the second day of the session, Vince really “took the cake” by bringing to class the last pie Rex had ever made. It had been in the freezer carefully wrapped and waiting for just the right moment to share and Vince felt that this was it. Of course, Kitchen Contagion spread like wildfire among all of us and I think we all wore our hearts on our sleeves that day as we surrounded Vince with hugs, smiles and tears.

Memories of Rex, Vince, and all those present in the course still bring great happiness to me and I believe that they always will.

Vince (far left) and pie makers in our happy place at a 2-day Art of the Pie course taught at King Arthur Baking School in 2017.

What I’m Making

To balance out baking, I enjoy greens that are really coming on now with this favorite and very easy salad.

RECIPE: Spring Greens & Goat Cheese Salad with Vinaigrette

Serves 4

What You Need

• Enough arugula, maché, tender young spinach and lettuce leaves to filll a salad bowl

• 1 medium red onion, peeled and sliced thin

• 4 tablespoons olive or avocado oil

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (always get the best you can afford)

• 1/2 to 1 cup goat cheese

• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Photo by David Lang on Unsplash

How to Make It

1. Rinse and carefully dry the arugula, maché, lettuce, and spinach leaves. (I usually let the PNW rain do the rinsing for me.) Place in your salad bowl and add the sliced onion.

2. Mix the oil and vinegar and pour over the salad. Toss well and divide on four plates.

3. Crumble the goat cheese into small pieces and serve on top of each serving. Enjoy!

Note: If you have time, goat cheese is delicious warmed in a 300F oven for 5-6 minutes. and crumbled over the top!

What I’m Reading

Table for Two by Amor Towles

In his latest book, Table for Two, Amor Towles, who is well-known for his book A Gentleman in Moscow, writes “Emotional Contagion is a term coined by behavior scientists for a fairly universal aspect of human nature—that we tend to mirror the mood signals of others.”

You’ll find six splendid short stories and a novella in Table for Two that “consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.” Well worth the read!

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So much writing is being generated by AI these days. I want to assure you that mine will always be AI Free.

Kate McDermott’s Newsletter is an AI Free Zone

I made this with a canning jar lid and markers.

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Be sure to smile at the next person you see, too!

1. “Wuzband”: We was together until we…“wuzn’t.”