Baker's Box: Part II
Riddle of the day: What's an incubator kitchen, passive aggressive weather, and fragile masculinity all have in common? Read this to find out! (yes this is clickbait)
Two weeks ago, I contended that hospitality is at its best when food is present, because food is an exemplary space-maker, creating room in the heart for stories, ideas for the mind, and nourishment for the body. I then briefly touched on how a baker’s box for and with foster care youth through a reflection journal might cultivate this type of hospitality. (If you didn’t get a chance to read it, you can do so here.)
Today, I’d like to share more about how the actual event went down.
The Baker’s Box took place on a Saturday afternoon.
It was a classic November day in Michigan which means that the weather is taunting you at every hour: Will it rain? Snow? Sleet? Get pretend mad and then passive aggressively do nothing?
No one ever knows. You just have to prepare for everything everywhere all at once.
This is already TMI, but I wanted to show up to the event either wearing the plainest outfit possible (Jeans + Walmart Mono-color t-shirt) to identify with the people, or a really quirky fit that would let people know that it’s okay to be out there and just be yourself.
As you can see…
I chose the latter, suitin’ up in my favorite pair of thrifted overalls, a Forever 21 sunflower t-shirt, a bandana, and light green shoes. This fit wasn’t nearly warm enough, but whatever. For the children. Aesthetic over utility.
Jasmyn (one of the OurHouse staff) and I showed up an hour early to Growing Hope’s multi-purpose fellowship hall, to whom we are grateful for allowing us to use their space. The vibes were immaculate, especially because they had those cute lights you see at mainstream wanna-be hipster restaurants 💀.
I noticed that Jasmyn was carrying a box of coloring books and a stack of manga. Jasmyn told me that during these monthly life skill events, OurHouse youth needed a Goldilocks environment to stay focused the entire time. If the task is too difficult, they get frustrated and walk away. If it’s too easy, then it’s boring and not stimulating enough. It needs to be just right. The coloring books and manga were there as a secondary activity that would prevent any major disruptions to the main event.
She patted my back, smiled, and told me not to take it personally if everyone decided to peace-out during the event.
I wasn’t particularly worried because I view these events as a dynamic process, not as a static failure/success binary.
It’s something I learned from Nadezdha Savova-Grigorova, who licensed me in bread art therapy in the middle of Bulgaria (Sorry, this story is for another day).
During our training, she taught me that people are always watching, growing, and becoming, even if it looks like they aren’t paying attention.
It’s like the different parts and stages of a plant. A seed needs water and patience. A flower needs gentle hands and admiration. Their fundamental essence as a plant is the same, but their needs, timing, and capacities are drastically different. We call this difference good.
There’s also a kind of freedom in admitting that both the seed and flower are always in the process of having become and becoming. The goal isn’t to forcibly change anyone but to create the space for becoming to happen.1 In the same way, I have the freedom to meet people where they are, knowing with full confidence that they will listen at the capacity they have at the moment.2
One by one, people started to trickle in, filling out their name-tag and awkwardly making small talk with those around them. Before starting the event, I made sure to valuably use this time by doing what I do best: Eavesdrop.
There was a really wide range of people at the event. Most of the adult mentors understood the assignment. They knew that this event was a time to have fun, reflect on their lives through food, and enjoy some fellowship with each other. I was encouraged because they genuinely sounded like they were looking forward to it.
On the other hand, the youth, particularly the boys, seemed to have showed up because they had nothing better to do, or strong-armed strongly encouraged by a staff to attend. I overheard a couple of the older boys call the event too “girly” for them.
Fortunately, I specialize in working with MFM! (Men with fragile masculinities)
Once we had gathered around the table, I began the event by reading from the introduction of our reflection journal3 :
In the Midwest, fall is an important season to honor and participate in the harvest of food, friendships, and family.
When we share our harvest with one another, we are not only consuming material goods to sustain our physical bodies, but also our whole selves.
With every bite, we are nurtured with an abundance of stories and dreams. This is why we believe that eating harvests is a profound act of being human.
As you work through this booklet, our hope is that you come away feeling a little bit more rested, contemplative, and loved.
The room went silent, in a reverent but light-hearted manner, similar to the silence that takes place in the early stages of a hike together with friends.4 I love that words possess the incalculable power to steady and open hearts.
It was game time, baby.
Program
The event was broken down into four parts:
Cupcake
Cookies
Cake
Cheesecake bites
For each part, I acted as the facilitator and had participants spend some time reflecting on the baked good we were about to decorate through various questions, coloring activities, and prompts. After a time of sharing, one of my three esteemed baker friends taught us how to decorate the baked good.5
The following sections are a few (hopefully brief) reflections from each activity with the exception of cheesecake bites, which ended up becoming just a free-for-all as we ran out of time!
Cupcakes (Rachel Martindale)
The aim of the first activity was to use food as empowerment. By decorating cupcakes based on color therapy, I hoped that people would be able to name what they want, creatively express it into physical form, and eventually digest it within them.
I asked people to spend five minutes to color, reflect, and write in their journal, with special attention given to the color red (passion), orange (warmth), and yellow (hope).
What I learned from facilitating this activity is that vulnerability is a space-maker too.
Food certainly aids in this process as well:
“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
-Harriet Van Horne
I also learned that the hardest part about vulnerability is beginning it.
When I asked if anyone wanted to share, it was my mentee who shot his hand up and shared about his dream to be financially secure, to live independently, and one day, to support his own family. It was his vulnerability that created space for everyone afterwards to share honestly too.
I also loved that the boys who initially found this activity as “too girly” ended up being the ones who obsessed over the best way to make flower cupcake decorations. You already know I was hyping them up by calling them *insert their first name* Ramsey HAHA.
Cookies (Hira Mohsin)
The second activity focused on using food to understand differences as a source of strength, not conflict.
Food literally knows this better than anyone. It’s the acidic zing in a lime that elevates the street taco. Or consider the humble almond that’s added to a salad for texture. Differences = Flavor Town.
From this activity, I really appreciated (and found it hilarious) how confessional the responses were from folks.
I asked people to just let it all out. Who is the chocolate to your vanilla, and why?
A few of the people’s answers:
The sibling who is a clean freak.
The friend who can’t seem to keep a secret.
The parental guardian that hates everything I do for some reason.
At first, it really felt like we were a support group, brazenly confiding in one another about the “differences” of those around us, which ended up becoming a euphemism to describe the people we found really annoying.
But at some point, I asked people to view the differences as complements. One by one, as we re-imagined the narrative, I got the sense that people were relieved to wave the white flag and admit that they do indeed love those who are different from them.
I think despite our best attempts to thoroughly hate some people, we realize (hopefully sooner than later) how exhausting it can be. We want to be free from the prisons we create ourselves.
Thankfully, liberation is easier when we do it together.
Cake (Camrey)
Through cake, I wanted people to realize and remember that community is not a side-quest but essential to human flourishing. As May Sarton writes, the people we love are built into us.
One way this accidentally worked itself out was that there wasn’t enough frosting for everyone. (I find it hilariously poetic when accidents feel destined. Take that, free will! or destiny? I’m confused.)
In the moment, I was scrambling, but a few weeks after the event, I remembered that a scarcity of resources is actually a built-in feature of bread art therapy. These moments are an invitation to share rather than hoard.
Sharing is uncomfortable but a better vision of reality. It forces us to come face-to-face to engage, dialogue, and compromise with the other. In this case, people had to wait their turn and be mindful in their decorations. Those who didn’t have enough of one color had to use more of another.
Sharing puts us up against limitations, and whether we like it or not, it’s the boundaries that form us to be innovative and constantly rethink our decisions on what we want, how we want, when we want.
I found this moment to be eye-opening when I realized that to not sharing is actually an illusion. There’s no such thing as an unlimited resource. When we don’t share with the immediate people around us, it means we are possibly depriving people of resources who are far from us or those who will come after us. The question is not if we share but how.
Final Thoughts
We ended the event by putting all the decorated baked goods into cute boxes: one for our friend and one for us. Everyone was such a cutie pie.
On the drive home, I spent most of the time reflecting on the most memorable moment for me.
It was one of the OurHouse youth responding to the last cake question:
Question: “The base layer (of a cake) keeps everything together. What keeps you grounded?”
Response: “My mentor is my base layer. When my friends and family put me down, don’t believe me, and continue to discourage me, it is my mentor that keeps me grounded. She believes me. Encourages me. Keeps me going. She has grounded me in a way that no one else has.”
In many ways, it is exactly these type of moments we want to cultivate at a Table Fables moment—to use food as a means to give us the language to articulate what we know to be so true in our hearts (and stomachs).6
Thanks for reading, and please let me know if you want to do an event like this! We would be ecstatic to see people replicate this with their own lil’ spin.
-Hayoung
Henri Nouwen on hospitality.
Of course, it’s always possible that everyone peaces out because I am a terrible instructor 🤣
We decided on fall rather than Thanksgiving because traditional holidays can bring up complex emotions and sentiments due to unsaid expectations and family complications. We thought that the more neutral concept of “fall” would be an easier buy-in for everyone.
I feel like people are gonna flame me for this, but after all the initial chit-chat, there’s ALWAYS THIS SILENCE where everyone is vibing, enjoying the scenery, and making sure to sound not too exhausted.
Not only are my baker friends incredibly talented but they are also some of the busiest people I know. This event would have been nothing without them, and I am so grateful that they made the time to do something like this. Only love for them. <3
This is the best type of knowing for me, when it cannot be easily quantified and plugged into an algorithm. It is inherently subjective but somehow universally experienced.