Orange Cardamom Pound Cake

There is something really inviting about old friends in familiar settings. We are often tempted to want what once was (like croissants and cold mornings), in hopes that returning to our past will fulfill some sort of hollowness in the present. Were we somehow able to travel backwards in time, I don't doubt that many of us would slip into our youthful bodies and relive an experience or two. I've considered this often and always end up at the same question: Would our minds time travel in the same way our bodies do? If it were possible to make the jump, would we be able to or, more importantly, want to unlearn what we already know now?

Moving in time without seeing how or why we might want to change the past is interesting in the way it reflects the idea of ignorance is bliss. Yes, we could be happy again at age 7, 15, or 20, but it would only lead us back to where we are now. Without knowing what kind of days or people may be waiting for us in the future of the past, we would charge forward blindly, just as we already had. 

But the more I think about it, having experienced what led me to this point in my life has made me understand why everything came before is so indispensable. I would want to remember why I chose to return to a certain day or event and either maximize the pleasure of happiness or minimize the pain of a damning memory. It seems to me that reliving something exactly as it was in the past would be almost the same as remembering in the present but with much more complicated details about time and space continuums.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind returning to the instant my tongue touched a cup of cardamom tea. At the time, I was seated in an apartment with some of the best people I know I will ever meet. My friend M handed me a steaming mug that smelled familiar and exotic like musty basements filled with family memoirs waiting to be remembered. Looking back, it's hard to believe that I had lived so long without knowing how beautifully intricate and extensive cardamom could be alone.

A spice I previously considered to be only one component in complex flavor profiles was now standing in front of me on its own two feet. The tea burned my throat and the essence warmed my belly. Frankly, it was the best cups of anything I had ever tasted. But even though the robustness of that tea lingered on my palate, I still preferred it blended with cinnamon and ginger. The combination was traditional, and I reveled in the comfort. I didn't see a need to coax the cardamom and understand its individuality. Now I understand that I was very, very wrong.

For this recipe I knew I wanted to avoid a traditional pound cake. Orange seemed a nice fit, but never a big fan of dreamsicles, I needed to mellow the citrus with a vanilla alternative. Enter M's cup of creamy milk and tea. The cardamom and orange batter was bright and spicy, creamy yet sharp, and well suited for the soon-to-be-spring weather of the afternoon. The cardamom lifted above the orange and blossomed into its own. My only regret was that this awakening hadn't occurred sooner. If I knew back then in M's apartment what I know now, I would have made my way into the kitchen cupboard late at night and stolen every single tea sachet until I satisfied my thirst and curiosity.

Up until a certain point, I understood my friendship with M, and most other people in my life, as I did cardamom. I wasn't able to separate anyone from a specific group because I considered them to be elements of a greater experience. Like everyone else, the people of M's apartment were a unit, and a dinner or party without one member felt incomplete.

Then our lives started taking us to a different cities and priorities. As our paths diverged, we lost the convenience of a central gathering room and old friends took hold of new places. Passing conversations revealed more about each person than before and I began to realize that these were not the people I remembered. They were better because I knew more. I started thinking that sometimes the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts, but only if the parts are wonderful to begin with.

We can't time travel yet and I can't go back to that living room where we all sat for tea. For all of the conversations that should have already happened, I've settled with trying to fill in the holes now. M has been jetting around the world, saving our humanity as she was meant to do, but will be returning home soon for a visit. If she's reading, I hope that when we see each other she'll bring some tea because I'll have the cake ready, and we can sit down to talk about how she came to be.

Croissants

I've been thinking a lot about the life I left last May. It's taken me some time to realize that despite all of my frustrations, I wouldn’t mind returning to la belle vie by the sea. I don't miss the heartache from the later months, and I don't miss the constant urge to jump in the water and swim back to Virginia shores. What I do wish for is to go back to the weekend market at the bottom of my street and chat about curry with the woman who sold me spices. Without a doubt I would fly straight to Provence for another sunny afternoon picnic on the jetties with my housemates. But most of all, I would drop everything in an instant for one more early morning croissant from my favorite boulangerie.

Truthfully, I’m not sure how I managed to wake up at 5.30 am most days to travel one town over and teach hundreds of young French children. I remember my first morning alone in front of the students, feeling especially ill-equipped to be commanding a classroom. Fearfully, I rambled in English, loudly and slowly like strangers sometimes do to the blind in movies because they’ve confused them with the deaf. In this case, those 30 pairs of eyes might have very well been hard of hearing because their faces showed no signs of understanding. Though I towered over the desks, I felt significantly small among the seven-year olds. They terrified me with their Bonjour Madame’s. In their hands, they wielded fountain pens and for-construction-paper-only child safe scissors. Their silence was menacing in the way only a quiet mob can be before the destruction.


Teaching became my life. My classes were the first thing I thought about in the mornings and the last before I fell asleep. The single hall where I traveled from class to class permeated my dreams and my days off. All of a sudden, I could only speak of lesson plans and disciplining the misbehaved. I couldn’t explain enough times how there are only so many different techniques to teach the correct pronunciation of I am so that these kids didn’t grow up announcing to everyone, I ham! It was almost ridiculous how I agonized about arming a youth with existential crises of identity and deli meat.


After all of that, I made it. I survived the paper cuts and chalk dust; I endured coloring days and bingo games. Maybe it’s the time and distance, but now I fondly think about the friendship bracelets and drawings I’ve collected from my students.


I think a lot of my sanity was preserved in the quiet moments of respite that distanced me from foraging through foreign languages and cultural anomalies. There were naps during lunch among the library books and breezy Saturday mornings when the sounds of life below my apartment floated in through my tiny attic room window. Then there are the memories that I want to remember most.

Give me one perfect croissant and I am right back in those moments of clarity and purpose. They are always the same: the smell of butter rises in the cold air as I make my way past the clanking trash truck and closed post office. Holding a delicately warm wax paper bag under the weight of another navy sky, I try not to think about how today I will enunciate horse, human, and head. And as I wait for the last 6 am regular to saunter up just in time to see the bus pull in, I bite into an unmistakable balance of butter and pastry. First comes a crackle, then the soft and sweet, followed by a salty creaminess and a pocketful of air to tame the tongue before another mouthful of perfection. The taste is almost as pure as hanging a brightly colored Thanksgiving hand-dinosaur on the blackboard.