11/01/2023
From the sometimes weekly bakery newsletter:
One Slice of Cake Is Not Enough
Monday through Saturday were all day baking and business but on Sunday we went walking. The plan was vague from the start and abandoned altogether with our first turn off the map. We walked footpaths and overgrown logging roads, through the brilliant green-gold of sun-speckled maple woods, through forests of fir and salal and tall huckleberries with a few red fruits still clinging to their branches, past mossy sandstone boulders capped with ferns, across dry creeks, through dark ravines and barren cedar groves and scrubby stands of alder, and out into the blinding sun of a clear cut. The sky was pure, pale blue and below us to the west spread the Sound, mist still clinging to the islands. To the east the mountains were sharp and bright as a blade. We sat in the sunshine to drink our thermos of tea and eat the slices of kabocha cake E had packed. And then we walked on, following a narrow path down off the ridge and into the shade of the eastern slope.
We were never really lost. We knew generally which direction we were walking by the sun and the shape of the land, and we knew which way we wanted to be going. But there were moments when the path turned and we, perforce, turned with it, when I wondered if we’d find our way out of the woods by dark. In the late afternoon we found a lake and from there it was easy enough to work our way back to the certainty of a marked path. Up one ridge and down the next, through cedar and fir and maple, past mossy boulders capped with ferns, and finally, tired and triumphant and ravenously hungry, back to the road where the car waited in the lowering light.
It was, aside from the shortage of snacks, a good walk. One slice of cake, even very good cake, is insufficient fuel for a six hour ramble. If you’re headed out into the hills yourself this week consider packing at least two.
