Soundtrack for a Bake- athon Part 1

December 15th  2010


The world's gone mad and I'm on a holiday bake-athon, the kitchen smells of sugars and cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, dried fruits, raisins and cranberries...I'm up to my neck in flour, sifting and mixing like a mad woman over her caldron of many secrets.  "Boil, boil, trouble and toil..." ah, but this concoction is bursting with all things good to warm the heart and cheer the soul.  So trouble, be gone for a few moments.

Cooking

Today's kitchen to-dos are brought to us by the Beatles, so far Beatles '65, followed by Abby Road played side two then side one just because.  Right now I'm on a break while "I Want You" starts in the background.  Brother Jim, this one's for you.

That battle of the bands in high school, glad they let you play after all that work.  I mean, here's this high school kid who should have had a record deal since he was, I don't know, five...learns the song, writes the musical parts for said piece, assembles members of the high school band and together they just plain old ROCK the gymnasium!   Jesus, I was soooooo proud!   They disqualified him before the contest even began (smart move, he'd have won hands down otherwise!), but let him close the show  with the piece as a special number.   I'm tellin' ya, the whole place came alive....even the teachers were rockin!  The end part, the instrumental jam ending was just incredible....with his band plus the high school band members all going at it-
the room started to swirl and spin......we all danced, twirling around like whirling shamans, calling up incredible things to dance with us.....the sound surrounded us like wind, like blankets then it stopped.

And all that was left was the echo.

Then silence as it drifted away.

Then silence until the silence came back.

And then, incredible applause, stomping, screaming and cheering......

I don't remember how long it went on, but eventually the applause ended.  I remember going by where Jim and his ensemble were picking up their things. We hugged.

The world was crazy back then, too.  Vietnam, social unrest, the generation gap and so on.  It was a time of upheaval and change, much like today; but we survived.

I believe we can survive these trying times as well, with a little bit of faith, a little bit of common sense and a little bit of rock n' roll....so for today, Fifty Five Is The New Soundtrack for a Bake-athon Part 1, because sometimes ya just gotta get creative and baking is a good way to do it!
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