Bake Around the World: Write in the Kitchen, Suriname, Bojo Cake and Cold Spring

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.

It’s the day before our big work event and my colleagues and I are sitting around the big office table, filling nametags and talking about baking. I haven’t yet picked my November country, but I am running out of available colleagues. We glance down the hall where our colleague is clearly on a call. For once, I choose patience. But as soon as they join us in the kitchen, I pounce. “Can you spin the country wheel?” And spin it does until it lands on my eleventh nation: Suriname.

As has been the case every month, I immediately search my brain for what I know about the country. Then, I type into Google the country name + traditional dessert. Cassava cake comes up almost immediately to oohs and aahs from the audience. I haven’t dug in much, but I am easily sold. In fact, because of my schedule this month, I did things a bit in reverse. Typically, I extensively research the country, write the first half of the blog, then come back to finish the piece after trying the treat. At time of writing, the cassava cake has been baked, shared, and fully consumed. So now let me learn about its country of inspiration.

I could have told you that Suriname was located between Guyana and French Guiana and above Brazil and that the capital is Paramaribo. Beyond that, I realized I didn’t know much about the nation of approximately 650,000 people. Per Brittanica, Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands on November 25, 1975. So nearly almost exactly 50 years later, I was inadvertently celebrating Surinamese independence in my New York City kitchen. 

According to The Spruce Eats, Suriname’s food culture is influenced by its diverse population (90% of those established in the country have ancestors from other countries). Because of Suriname’s tropical, coastal climate, coconuts, plantains, and seafood (especially shrimp) are key ingredients. As is cassava—the star of my show. 

Once again, per Brittanica, cassava is “a tuberous edible plant of the spurge family from the American tropics. It is cultivated throughout the tropical world for its tuberous roots, from which cassava flour, breads, tapioca, a laundry starch, and an alcoholic beverage are derived. Cassava probably was first cultivated by the Maya in Yucatán.”

I’ve had cassava in the public sector. I think I’ve even baked with cassava flour at home. But on a larger scale, I had no idea what to do with cassava or if it would be hard to find. I found it immediately, in the freezer section at my grocery store. (I used almost all of it, which means as a brief aside, I now get to figure out what to do with the leftovers!) But onto the cake.

I’d been calling it cassava cake, but the proper term for what I made is “bojo cake,”  and it is a traditional Surinamese dessert. It’s mostly grated cassava and coconut (naturally gluten free), flavored with cinnamon and spices and sometimes rum or pineapple chunks, or raisins. (I opted for a hair of the latter.) I found a vegan recipe from The Indigo Kitchen and was, at first, a little wary of how easy it seemed. The two hour bake time also gave me pause but as I went about my evening and the apartment slowly began to spin with the scents of warm, sweet bojo cake, I was sold.

It was delicious. It was so effortlessly delicious, I made a vow to learn more about cassava—send me your recipes! Until we ran out, it became a small nighttime treat. A warm slice of bojo cake, a big blanket, a good book. These are the days. This is the life.

As a brief aside, The Indigo Kitchen was new to me, but I wanted to pull a couple pieces from their website that resonated and that made me know I was at the right corner of the internet: “This kitchen is a safe space where we not only create delicious vegan dishes but also discuss more important topics. In this safe space we welcome you regardless of the colour of your skin, your sexual orientation, the shape of your body, the pronouns you identify with and the list goes on. Yes, in this kitchen we see colour, we recognize each other’s (read: our) pain and show up for one another. This is the food blog where veganism intersects with other important movements focussing on decolonization, feminism, and lgbtq rights. Besides raising awareness for matters such as hiv, toxic masculinity, abuse, and mental illness.” Definitely worth a follow. 

Bojo cake consumed, then came the writing part of my challenge. November had slipped away with ferocious speed. Faced with a busy work schedule, an out-of-state marathon, a head cold immediately following the race that absolutely destroyed two weeks, and the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., I suddenly felt myself on the cusp of December with not an ounce of creative writing or time. 

Until I caught a Metro North train to Cold Spring, New York. Cold Spring is a small village about 80 minutes north of Manhattan and known for being a pleasant day trip for city-worn New Yorkers looking for a woodsy hike or quaint shopping. I was craving the former (part of a tradition I started for myself when I moved to New York in 2016—always go hiking outside the city the day after Thanksgiving) and didn’t mind adding the latter (we love supporting small business Saturday)!

Newer to my tradition this year was the staying. Historically, my hikes were brief day trips but this year, in the interest of leisure, we booked one night at a hotel in town for a gentler timeline on exploration. 

As expected, nothing fires up the creative writing energy like a change in scenery. In a place where everything is new, everything has the potential to be exciting. I wonder how I can translate that into my daily. 

After the hike (and after the required flopping into bed, eating trail mix, and reading that comes after a good walk through the woods), we stepped into the blustery wind for a 5 minute walk to dinner. It was darker than our New York City eyes were accustomed to. Darker and quieter. Leaves crunching below us, Christmas trees framed by front windows, we slipped into casual ghost stories and supernatural hypotheticals. It was goofy but it did make me wonder what it would look like to build a short story around the ideas. Horror is not my usual subject, but isn’t this year and this challenge about trying new things in my writing routines and styles? Sitting closer to home? Writing for myself?

Taking inspiration from Cold Spring—and also from that time my best friend and I stopped in a small town on a road trip through true upstate New York and both got so spooked by a situation we still reminisce about the way the hair stood on our necks as we rushed back to our rental car and got the heck out of dodge—I leaned into the idea of fear. 

I’ve spent a lot of time—first writing the advice column for my school newspaper and later on The Smile Project blog—talking about facing our fears and being bold in pursuit of our dreams. But what I wanted to write this month was a more October-themed type of fear with vampires and ghosts and ghouls. Again, not my usual. But oh isn’t that the point? 

Isn’t the point of this challenge I began 11 months ago to just try something? To write not for work or for The Smile Project, but to write for myself? To write with no intention of seeking publication or even sharing? To write messy and quick and dirty and experimentally? To be okay with writing poorly or imperfectly or without a plan? To sit down and noodle around and see what happens? To know that some day I might want to pull one character or one scene or even one perfectly crafted sentence but for now the simple act of forcing myself to stay writing even when it’s hard, I mean goodness isn’t that triumph enough?

It makes me wonder what genre I have no business in that I should try next. It makes me wonder if I could make it my business. It makes me want to claim it all.

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)

October: to banana fritters and Welcome Tea (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)

November: to bojo cake and Cold Spring (Suriname)

Cold Spring

It had seemed strange to her, in hindsight, the way the concierge greeted them. Eager to assume good intentions, relentless to view everyone as a friend, she had smiled sweetly at the man. She had given up information freely—first time to the village; hiking Pellerton’s Trail; Josh’s Antique Shop; the honey lavender cake at Meshie’s Kitchen. Would he add anything to the list?