A black-sesame babka inspired by Jude's famed ten-nut cake in Hanya Yanagihara's novel, A Little Life.
! All June long, we'll be sharing long reads, personal essays, and recipes from LGBTQ+ writers. This week: Manuel Betancourt on the solace of baking.I spent the summer of 2015 reading Hanya Yanagihara’sThe 720-page novel is not for the faint of heart. There’s the length, of course. But there’s also the grueling nature of its plot.
Many of the strategies Jude follows to keep these hyenas at bay feel all too familiar, for they are the very things those of us with decidedly less harrowing tales turn to in times when life feels much too overwhelming. Jude heads down to his building’s pool, where he tires himself out in hopes of sleeping soundly. He has friends who call him up late at night to busy his mind and remind him he’s loved.
Yanagihara never quite puts Jude’s baking in conversation with those other artistic endeavors. But in the way it becomes both lifeline and passtime, his forays in the kitchen should remind us of the numbing and nurturing power that baking can have on us. It’s not just that baking demands patience; it’s that it demands absolute surrender, as well. Of one’s time. Of one’s senses. Of one’s attention.
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