Captain's Log, Day 11: Quarantine Isn't a Piece of Cake, But I'm Making It

Date: April 16, 2020

Time of post: 10:05 PM

Quarantine Day: 32

Last Song I Listened To: “Cheating on U” by Lacy Cavalier

Last Person I Communicated With: group text with Mikayla and Lexi

Last Thing I Ate: coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee

Last Thing I Read: “The History of the Book in the Caribbean and Bermuda” by Jeremy B. Dibbell (for my History of the Book Class)

Current Mood: motivated

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: Apocalypse DB and quiz; HoB DB

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: grading!

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: grading!

One Reason I’m Happy Today: Zoomed with my Children’s Lit people (and Jacque) last night! We made a video for Anne Phillips and sent it to her; unrelated, we also made a video of us singing “All-Star”

Dear Apocalypsers,

Welcome to my food blog!

JK.

But really. I meant to write this last, but, instead, I Zoomed with friends and went to bed at a decent hour—closer to 2AM than 4AM! So I’m just going to write what I was going to write yesterday.

One of the small, individual cakes I made.

Every once in a while, I get the desire to bake. Which is weird, because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth; I’m much more of a savory snacks person, and French fries are Kryptonite. (If you ever want me to do something, just offer me French fries, lol.) So, usually when I bake, I keep a few things and take the rest to the office…which I can’t exactly do right now…and that’s how I ended up with a whole 9-ish-inch, heart-shaped cake that I’m not 100% sure what to do with yet. (I’m taking suggestions!)

Anyway, I’m also not a “baker baker.” I only bake things out of boxes, but I do like to tinker with them. (My secret ingredient is vanilla in everything.) So, yesterday, when I got the hankering for baking, I went to my cupboard to see what I had; it’s like the dessert round in Chopped. I had yellow cake mix, but not much icing, so I decided to try my hand at a coffee cake. I grabbed cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla (duh!), and maple syrup, and voilà! Here’s my “recipe.” (Let me establish that I literally threw things in the bowl with the cake mix, so these are very rough guestimates of amounts—and I’m awful at judging amounts. Honestly, cooking with Katie is more like “follow your heart.”)

Katie’s “Pseudo-Koffee Kake”

Cake:1 boxed yellow cake mix 

3 eggs (as per cake mix instructions) 

1 ½ c. brown sugar, packed 

1 c. milk 

1/2 c. oil (as per cake mix instructions) 

~1/3 c. maple syrup (I used a light maple syrup, but I assume any kind will work) 

2-3 tsp. vanilla flavoring 

Cinnamon to taste (I used a lot—like, multiple Tbs.)

Oatmeal Crunch Topping: 

*Note: depending on the size of your cake or how thick you want your topping, you can double this recipe. I like more topping, so I doubled it*

1 pack instant oatmeal (a brown sugar cinnamon or spiced oatmeal is ideal, or you might need to add your own spices** to the mix; I used Quaker Gingerbread Spice oatmeal) 

~1/8 c. brown sugar 

~1 Tbs. butter (soft) 

**If using plain oatmeal, add cinnamon/nutmeg/pumpkin pie spices at your discretion 

Directions: 

·         Preheat oven to 350 F
·         Combine dry cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl
·         Add wet ingredients one at a time, mixing as you go
o   The cake mix called for 1 c. of water, but I substituted 1 c. of milk
o   Note: if the batter starts to look too soup-y, you can probably cut back on the oil. I ended up having to add about 3/4 c. of flour to thicken it
·         Grease your baking pan
·         Bake approximately 30 min. (Use the cake mix box for guidance)
·         While the cake is baking, combine oatmeal, brown sugar, butter, and optional spices into a small bowl; mix gently
·         Add softened butter and combine until crumbly
·         After 30 min, my large cake was still raw in the center—that’s good!
·         Remove cake(s) from oven, brush on a light coating of maple syrup, and top with oatmeal topping
·         Return to oven for 15-20 min. or until done
o   Note: my small cakes didn’t need the extra time, but I left them in for around 5 min. to toast the oatmeal
·         Remove from oven and enjoy!

 

The larger cake that I still don't know what to do with.

We’re all dealing with this apocalyptic scenario in different ways. For me, isolation has really just emphasized parts of my personality that already existed: I like to create—be that through baking or PowerPoints or crafts or Harry Potter spreadsheets or carefully curated Spotify playlists. And I keep thinking about how it’s not really that different from how the protagonists in our texts and movies cope with their own grief and traumatic experiences.

Katniss made lists—see this post for an entire entry about that—and I’m definitely doing that in my own way, through the little check-ins at the beginning of each post.

Jane in Dread Nation (2018) is proactive and action-oriented, taking the lead and making plans and trying to gain some semblance of control over her situation, and I feel creating something is my version of that. I can’t go fight zombies—partially because I’m not supposed to “go outside” or “be around people”—but I have total control over any fanfiction I write or what books I read or what ingredients I add to my cake.

I’ve noticed that the characters in Daniel Heath Justice’s The Way of Thorn and Thunder (2011) seem to put a lot of emphasis on relationships. Tobhi, especially, comes from a very social and close-knit community, and I see a lot of my own values in the Tetawi people. Molli Rose is described as speaking “plainly and without concern for diplomatic niceties; her concern was for truth and good sense, two things sadly rare in the world these days” (Justice 169), and, if I’m being honest, I tweet the most quotes from chapters with Tobhi, because he always seems to be spreading wisdom: “Ye did what ye could. No one’s askin’ ye to do no more” (117); “[Tarsa] had a good heart and a fiery spirit, two traits that were much honored by [Tobhi’s] people” (111); “It weren’t like today, ye know, where most folks don’t know how to share words without losin’ their understandin’ of each other” (118).

Tobhi and the Tetawi seem to focus on people, which is even more important for me these days, since I get so little face-to-face interaction. I’ll stop schoolwork for a Skype chat with friends; I’ll give my students extensions at the drop of a hat; I just think it’s more important right now to show compassion and care about people than to hyperfocus on what we would “normally” accomplish if we weren’t…you know…in the middle of a pandemic.

I just want to throw out here that I'm obsessed with Tobhi.
He and Smudge the Deer are my favorite characters.
(Still big Kristoff & Sven vibes.)

If anything happens to them, I WILL riot. pic.twitter.com/GVJBGlBS2G

— Katie Cline (@katiebethbug) April 14, 2020

We’re all just trying to make it out of this with our physical and mental health intact, right?

And, that being said, may the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

Works Cited:

Justice, Daniel Heath. The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles. University of New Mexico Press, 2013.