Mindy’s Story

Although she was raised in a family of eight with home-made meals being daily fare, it wasn’t until Mindy was living on her own that she began to cook for herself.  Since, her interest in food grew beyond the recipe and she found herself curious to learn the why’s and how’s of the food she was consuming.  As her knowledge base of what is contained in foods and what those ingredients do increased, she decided to start blogging about the food she was consuming and sharing the recipes.  Mindy currently resides in Toronto and participates in Daring Cooks, Daring Bakers, is a Foodbuzz contributor and has a feature on her own blog called Sunday Dinners.  Another feature on her blog came about after a trip to Kenya that she took as a volunteer in 2010 with the International Volunteers Head Quarters.  Mindy stayed with a Kenyan family while working at orphanages and IDP’s (International Displaced Persons Camps).   She even spent time with the Masai warrior tribe.  I’m happy that she is here today, sharing her story with us.  You can follow Mindy on Twitter @abalancdkitchen

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The sunlight catches her hair as it reaches in through the window. She has been arranging and rearranging the same few flowers in the same vase on the windowsill for 45 minutes. She is by nature a calm, loving woman, slim and quirkily beautiful, with long blond hair and dainty wrists. She moves with the grace and ease of someone who can’t wait to begin each new day. She has two wonderful boys aged 5 and 3, and a husband who loves her deeply.

This day began like any other. She made breakfast for her family, and after her husband left to take the boys to school and daycare, tidied the house and made the beds. Then she gathered her purse and went to the doctor’s appointment. She hadn’t been feeling well these last few months, and the doctor had suggested tests. She wasn’t expecting the results: cancer. And at an advanced stage. She sat in the doctor’s office for an hour, not quite absorbing anything that was said.

Her drive home was silent. She didn’t call anyone, didn’t turn on the radio. When she got home she decided the living room needed something of beauty added to it, and now stands arranging and rearranging the same few flowers over and over. She has not called her husband. How do you break this type of news? Her mind is racing and still at the same time. She never thought it would happen to her. “Is this the price you pay for being so lucky,” she wonders, “for perhaps taking too much for granted?”

All those times she had been short with her husband or impatient with her boys. She instantly regrets them, and then turns her mind to all the times they had played in the park together as a family, cuddles and snuggles and bedtime stories, laughter and love that abounded throughout their home. Is that it then? Is this how it ends?

No. This isn’t all there is. This isn’t all there will be. The reality finally clicks, and with it a steely resolve to fight with every ounce of strength and will. She will beat this. She has to. And she reaches for the phone to break the news to her husband.

***

I first heard about Frosting for the Cause through reading a post from another blogger. I was instantly struck by the enormity of this task, and the amazing impact we could have as 365 bloggers come together in support of cancer research. Like the woman whose story I share, we will beat this. We have to.

I decided to make sugar cookies and excitedly picked a recipe from a renowned baking expert. I am pretty familiar with baking, and the dough seemed to turn out the way it should. I divided it in half, keeping half plain, and adding cinnamon and orange zest to the other half.

The recipe calls for chilling the dough, but after the requisite time the dough was rock-hard and wouldn’t roll out as directed. I left it to thaw, but once it was soft enough to roll, the next challenge presented itself. The dough was unbelievably crumbly. It wouldn’t roll; in fact it could barely be handled without breaking down into a crumbly mess. I wound up breaking off pieces and baking what I called “Sugar Cookie Buttons,” but in the end I still had to throw out a large portion of the dough.

I unfortunately don’t have mouth-watering pictures or successful cookies to show here, but I deeply wanted to contribute a post to this meaningful, beautiful cause. These cookies may not have worked out, but I can assure you I will be doing some more baking so I will be able to deliver the requisite goods to a Women’s Cancer Hospice as directed.

With love and light,

Mindy