I started Baking with Chickens after taking a year off from the corporate hamster wheel to travel and indulge my hobbies. I could do anything with my time and what I found myself doing was tending to my backyard chickens, baking, cooking and attempting time-consuming projects that I've always said that I'll do one day when I'm not so busy.
After years of working in PR and marketing, "busy" became my way of life. Always too busy for this, too busy for that, too busy for myself, too busy for friends and family. When people asked "how are you?" my auto-response was "Busy, so busy!"
Finally for the first time in my life I wasn't busy anymore. So what's a gal to do? I used to tell myself that I wasn't a good baker. I'm a better cook than baker because bakers are precise, measured, scientific, patient and obsessively detailed. That's not how I am so therefore I'm not good at baking.
When I was a kid I'd make gingerbread cookies with my mom during Christmastime. I fell in love with the idea of perfect, elaborately decorated gingerbread men and women. We'd sit down around the table with the fresh baked cookies, icing, sprinkles and decorations and get to work. I would decorate two, maybe three, cookies and 20 minutes later I lost my patience. The rest of the cookies got a zig zag of icing, a handful of sprinkles loosely tossed on top and I'd wander off. Fast-forward a few decades and look what I made last year!
Baking taught me patience. I learned that it wasn't that I'm an impatient person who is incapable or not a good baker, I just never gave myself the dedicated time or brain space to create. I haven't changed as a person. I'm still not precise. I still have a tendency to "wing it" with my baking. Sometimes it works like magic and sometimes it's a magnificent fail. But that's how l learn and discover new things. Ugly macarons still taste good with ice cream. Bread that didn't rise can still be used to make breadcrumbs or chicken snacks. Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean I shouldn't try.
A Moment of Self-Reflection:
Has anyone ever told you that you're not good at something? Does the little voice in your head or your own self doubt tell you that you're not good enough or talented enough? Well F that.
Now, I'm not delusional and think that I'm great at everything. There is something to be said about recognizing my strengths and areas for improvement. But I won't let my own self doubt or someone else's negativity stop me from trying, learning and improving. Especially if it's something that brings me joy. And evidently my chickens and baking projects bring other people joy too.
So this is Baking with Chickens. My hobbies turned into a side hustle. Baking projects, nerdy chicken and egg knowledge, and other weirdly wonderful things that interest me. Occasionally there will be chicken shit bingo, tea parties with my chickens and other silliness that will make you laugh out loud. Thank you for following along. I hope that at the very least you'll be entertained or learn something you didn't know before. At best maybe I'll inspire you to tackle that project you've always wanted to try or get your own flock of backyard chickens!
XO,
Christina
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