Living Colour

By pure happenstance, in my family, birthdays and events often occur in clusters. Between siblings, their partners, parents, nieces, and nephews, our special dates tend to be plotted in tight formations throughout the calendar. As our family continues to expand, these occasions seem to come around more quickly with each passing year. Like many families geographically spread across different states and navigating the chaos of modern life, we do our best to honour these milestones in any way we can. Whether we’re able to gather in person or not, we all contribute to gifts, make phone calls, and take a moment to celebrate before the whirlwind of life takes over once more. 

Right now, we’re in the cluster of dates focusing on my sister and my mum. A few weeks ago, we celebrated my sister’s birthday, and soon, in early May, we’ll mark my mother’s birthday just a week before Mother’s day here in Australia. 

Which is why before discussing cooking and food, I first want to briefly talk about women.

I consider myself fortunate enough to say that I have a hell of a lot of women in my life. From my mother and sister to my girlfriend, two sisters-in-law, three nieces, and many of my closest friends, I find myself surrounded by females far more frequently than men. This reality can sometimes feel daunting, bordering on overwhelming. Through deep and open communication with some of my friends, I’ve gained insight into a breadth of sensitive topics that a lot of men tend to shy away from. Our conversations navigate the highs and lows of their lives, and it often feels like there’s no such thing as a taboo subject among us as they speak to the complexities of womanhood.

And being a woman really is complex. Women face a multitude of conflicting expectations and demands as they try to find a balance between societal norms and personal fulfillment. They’re encouraged to be an independent boss bitch and excel in their careers, all while remaining humble enough to uplift other women. Then they’re asked to balance this professional ambition with personal fulfilment that is often measured through the growth, or planning of, a family. 

Once children enter the picture, the expectations multiply. Women are expected to be proficient at nurturing their young, supporting their partners, and managing the household, all while preserving their own identity and sense of self. Intertwined in all of this, there’s the constant demand to exude sensuality whilst simultaneously embodying a sense of authenticity, humour and grace that their partners, or potential partners, have grown to desire. And if they do manage to strike this insanely complex balance, they’re often torn down by their peers for no other reason than they’ve found a way to catch lightning in a bottle and hold their shit together for a few precious moments.

Honestly, being a woman sounds fucking exhausting. Womanhood is fraught with so many conflicting messages it’s clear to see how the cacophony of social and personal expectation can overwhelm even the strongest of minds. Combine all of this with scientific findings that indicate a woman’s brain typically contains more grey matter and stronger interhemispheric (side-to-side) connections than males, and it’s little wonder that there is an increased prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress amongst women.

In contrast, men often encounter fewer societal demands and exhibit different cognitive strengths. Our brains are more adept at creating front-to-back pathways of communication which leads to enhanced perception and motor skills, albeit without the same levels of intuition and analytical processing women gain from the connections between their right and left brain. 

And here you were hoping that because ‘cake’ is a modern day colloquialism for an impressively shaped butt my divergence towards women was going to be less about science and a little more spicy…

Part of me wishes I was taking this somewhere saucy right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve produced anything risqué for an online audience. But whilst those articles are a bit of fun to create, I’ve always felt some discomfort knowing that my family and close female friends might consume them. So, rather than indulging in a light-hearted love letter about women’s bums of all shapes and sizes, I chose to delve into a the topic of women so that I could say this: no matter the basis of your relationship, there is nothing more precious that you can offer a woman navigating all of the multifarious bullshit they face on a daily basis than your time.

Time can be shared in various ways. It might be offering a helping hand to hang out the laundry or bathe the kids. It could be setting aside your typical masculine role and inclinations to learn to braid hair or paint toenails with your daughter. Perhaps it’s an uninterrupted hour without distraction, simply being present and engaged in conversation with your significant other over a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Alternatively, it could be shared over a few hours cooking together with a loved one. And when it comes to cooking, few gestures show our affection quite like the yearly tradition of crafting a humble birthday cake.

Ready for a brief history lesson?

Understanding the origins of the birthday cake requires examining the earliest forms of birthday celebrations. While the ancient Egyptians are often credited as the first civilisation to observe birthday traditions, these events were primarily reserved for the social elite. When a pharaoh was crowed, it was believed that they underwent a transformation to the divine, and their coronation was marked as their birth and commemorated with extravagant festivities. 

Likely influenced by the Egyptians, ancient Greeks also embraced birthday celebrations, viewing them as a form of worship to honour deities. Among these, Artemis, sister to Apollo, held prominence as the goddess of the moon, hunt, and purity. Legend suggests that the Greeks would adorn cakes with candles to emulate the moon’s glow and present them as offerings at Artemis’s temple. Scholars also speculate that the candle smoke served as a conduit for prayers to the goddess, a theory that provides a foundation for the tradition of making wishes.

Then came the ancient Romans, credited with pioneering the first birthday cakes, crafted from mixtures containing flour, yeast, honey, oils, and cheese. Yet, these cakes remained exclusive to the elites, and were never prepared for women’s birthdays.

It wasn’t until the 18^th century in Germany that the modern form of birthday celebrations began to take form with the emergence of Kinderfeste. These parties, geared towards children, commenced with the lighting of candles atop a cake in the morning. However, unlike today’s custom of blowing out candles following a rendition of Happy Birthday ( a song with a somewhat murky origin story that traces back to the early 20^th century), the candles burned throughout the day, until the cake was eventually consumed after dinner. 

Finally, not all too long ago in retrospect, the industrial revolution further transformed birthday traditions. Thanks to advancements in mass production and the subsequent reduction in costs, Kinderfeste spread globally, becoming a cherished part of birthday customs worldwide.

Armed with this knowledge, yet acutely aware it offered no tangible benefits to my baking skills, I recently set out to create a birthday cake for my younger sister. But this wasn’t your typical cake. In fact, it wasn’t a cake at all; she had requested cinnamon scrolls, and, perhaps foolishly, I attempted to make a healthy rendition of the treat.

Employing Greek yogurt as a binding agent, I created my dough, kneading it until achieving a smooth consistency suitable for rolling. After dusting my countertop with flour, I shaped the dough into a rectangular slab approximately half an inch thick. A generous layer of oil followed, before an even sprinkling of cinnamon. I tightly rolled the dough into scrolls and sliced them into uniform pieces, arranging them in a baking dish. Once I’d applied a final brush of oil, I slid them into the oven.

The whole experience was messy beyond measure. Flour seemed to coat every surface of the kitchen, my hands and t-shirt were covered in dough, and the clean-up promised to be a enormous effort. Yet, within a few minutes of closing the oven doors, the amora of baked goods offset the heavy dose of elbow grease needed to clean the countertops.

Ultimately, the rolls fell short of being my most successful culinary endeavour. Personally, I’d rate them as a seven out of ten, leaving substantial room for improvement. But while the end result wasn’t a raging success, the effort that went into the process sure was. My sister and the rest of my family valued the time invested as much as the baked treats. 

This gratitude brings me full circle to my initial comments where I shared the limited understanding I possess about women. Whether it’s your wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, grandmother, or friend – regardless of the label, the most precious gift you can offer is your time. It’s a resource of finite and ultimately unknown measure for each of us. So, if you cherish someone, invest your time in them.

This doesn’t mean you have to abandon your own individualism in any way. Nor am I suggesting sharing your time is going to make up for any truly idiotic things you’ve done in your relationship. I’m just saying that making an effort is the easiest way to show someone you care. Spend meaningful time together, and you’ll inevitably reap the reward. The same works in reverse, or for any other genders. Despite our best endeavours to appear complex, we’re all simple creatures. We’ll love you forever if you show a willingness to just be present.

So, to any males who’ve made it this far into whatever the hell this post about cake has become, I have some sagely, and wholly unqualified advice; devote a Saturday to playing dress-up with your daughter. Tell your female friends you love them – in a non creepy way. Turn off your phone and engage in genuine conversation with your partner. Then turn it back on again and call your mum for a chat. And if you’re able to, mark their birthdays with a homemade cake or a batch of cinnamon scrolls. I promise that even if the result is a tasteless pile of mush, the heartfelt effort will resonate far deeper than any material gift ever could. There’s a reason why cake is often referred to as love made edible after all.