I can be lazy, but I am not lethargic.
For me, summer always translated to liquid days. Days that dragged on. The sound of cicadas were the sound of sun rays. Moths hit the windowsill at night and I stayed up way too late. Summer is a melting feeling, I always felt stagnant and viscous in the heat. I spent my time reading. I spent my time sleeping. I spent too much time in hot cars with no air conditioning, waiting in parking lots for my mother to finish grocery shopping. I spent a lot of time alone in the summer months between 7th and 8th and 9th grades.
For me now, who I am at 25, it is different. I have the dogs, the chickens, a fiance. I have a life I fell into, but pursued all the same. I like summer now, in my little town of Ligonier. The rain comes and goes as it pleases and floods our side yard and still I walk barefoot with the dogs when we play in between the flowering trees. I'm not able to read as much, dishes and laundry and days get in the way; but I bake and I write and I am content in the fact that I am growing up.
I found a shirt the other day that Nolan got me the first month we moved to California. A black Alexander Wang shirt that still smelled like the cigarettes I smoked in law school. It's no longer an anchor to that past life, but just a shirt I pulled out of the drawer now. I am realizing that we are allowed to change and not be constricted to the confines of a past we tried to idealize. That we are better now, better here, better today than we were yesterday.
I am realizing that I can enjoy summer because I am in this nebulous summertime feeling--at 25 I am no longer suffocating, but verdant and green and surrounding by the warmth I couldn't fully embrace before.
Peach Sheet Cake!
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cup AP flour
- 2 TB cornstarch
- 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 TB vanilla extract
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1 TB white vinegar
- 2 peaches, sliced and pitted
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350*F. Line and grease a 14" x 16" cake pan
- In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt
- In another bowl, cream together butter, shortening and white sugar
- Add eggs to the sugar mixture, one at a time, and stir until incorporated
- In a measuring cup, whisk together vanilla, milk, vinegar, and mayo
- Alternate between sugar mixture and milk mixture into your dry ingredients, stirring continuously until you get a soft, light batter
- Line bottom of cake pan with peaches in any design you want
- Gently pour and spread batter on top of peaches
- Bake for 50 minutes or until browned and fluffy
- Allow to cool for a few minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to enjoy
