Bake Around the World: Write in the Kitchen, Ireland, Soda Bread and The Nest

This year, I am endeavoring on a monthly challenge to bake around the world; write in the kitchen. The idea is inspired by Erin, my friend and author of This Footprint blog (IG @thisfootprint_blog) who participated in a cooking challenge for every country. Each month, I will randomly select a country and make a vegan version of a traditional dessert from that nation. And, each month, I will put intentional time into writing at least one non-Smile Project related piece. I look forward to expanding my confectionary acumen and baking around the world. And I look forward to sitting closer to home, writing for myself.

On the eve of September my college roommate was in town for the night and as we got ready for bed, lingering and chatting like we did a decade ago in the dorms, I asked her to pick my country for September. The wheel spun, hovering very close to Vatican City (communion wafers?) before landing on Ireland.

A few days later, I met another friend from college after work who would be staying with us in New York before heading to Pennsylvania for a wedding. Why the stop in New York? Because this friend is from Northern Ireland. Important immediate clarification—my country for September was Ireland, the sovereign nation. My friend is from Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom (along with England, Scotland, and Wales). 

Almost a decade ago now I passed through Dublin (Ireland) on the way to my friend’s in Northern Ireland. Because of this, I’m much better equipped to talk about Northern Ireland. I remember how green the grass was, how vibrant the landscape. My friend and his family and friends were all perfect hosts, showing me around the country including the beautiful Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was my first peek into that part of the world and I loved it.

Even though I’ve only passed through Dublin’s airport, it is the only country this year that I’ve technically “been to.” Per Britannica, Ireland is known for folklore, tales of leprechauns and pots of gold and for Saint Patrick’s driving the snakes out of the island with his three-leaved shamrock. Dublin, the capital, has around 2 million people (more than a quarter of the country's total population). Much of Irish culture, music, dance, food, and drink has spread from the Emerald Isle to just about every neighborhood I’ve lived in here in the United States.

I did a quick search that night for traditional Irish desserts but before I could get too far, I was hit with the obvious—Irish Soda Bread. 

According to the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, “The original recipe, dating back to 1836, featured four simple ingredients: flour, salt, an acid to interact with the sofa, and bicarbonate of soda” [baking soda]. Sour milk was an important part of the soda bread making process though today buttermilk has replaced that. (In my case, I make “vegan buttermilk” by combining soy milk with apple cider vinegar.)

Set on soda bread, the day my friend from Northern Ireland arrived, I excitedly shared the news and pulled up the recipe I’d bookmarked from one of my favorite vegan food bloggers, Nora Cooks. We were standing in line to take the ferry from Manhattan to Queens when he told me that that wasn’t real Irish soda bread. Well what is? We went back and forth looking at recipes and images on my phone, unable to find something that felt right. Well, my friend settled, it definitely wouldn’t have raisins. 

Nevertheless, a few days after his visit, I set about to make my Irish soda bread. Neither my partner nor myself are huge raisin people—and I knew it wasn’t “traditional” now—but I had bought the raisins already and thought why not. And honestly? We both kind of loved it. The raisins added a subtle sweetness to the bread without making it weird to eat with the chili and kale lentil soups I’d made in anticipation of fresh bread. The recipe was simple, easy, and frankly delicious. I would definitely repeat.

A week-ish after the soda bread, I sat down to write my piece for the month. Quickly, my story divulged into a place of sci-fi, a genre that I haven’t read too terribly much of and certainly one I’ve not attempted to write in as an adult. I had been working on the piece for a couple hours one morning before I had to put it aside for work—the first time I’d not written something in one go for this series.

The next morning, as I was running, I saw a sign for a handyman that made me think about the story I was working on. Throughout my last miles, I workshopped incorporating the handyman idea and the next morning, I began to weave it into the piece. 

Like all of the writing I’ve done for this series this year, it’s not a complete piece ready for submission, but rather a continued character study as I play with ideas, settings, and styles and flex my non-Smile, non-work related writing mind. It was fun, then, to leave it and come back to it throughout the course of the week. 

It’s made me eager to block some time at the end of the year to read through my full document and flag anything worth continuing more. What’s nice about this, of course, is that it’s okay if nothing is. 

It’s okay if I decide the piece I wrote in August was just for the habit and routine of writing. If I decide I don’t want to do anything with it. The doing it was the thing. And yet there are some writings that I’ve wondered about coming back to. Some characters I can’t stop thinking about. 

And maybe that’s the joy in writing—in doing anything—without expectation. Planting a seed. Watering a little. Seeing what sprouts. 

January: to beignets and book proposals (Gabon)

February: to spice cake and sunscreen (Grenada)

March: to rice pudding and Gregory (Colombia)

April: to puff puffs and how we relate (Nigeria)

May: to shendetlie and choosing new endings (Albania)

June: to mooncakes and steadiness (China)

July: to khaliat nahal and community (Yemen)

August: to aho and scene setting (Palau)

September: to soda bread and the Nest (Ireland)

The Nest

The book exhausts her. The language feels unimaginative—even by the standards of its time—but seeing as it is one of the few surviving texts from that era and seeing as she dreams of learning history in its entirety, she listens. She listens until she is far enough from the house that she switches her ear piece to the static-y radio broadcasting from The Underground.