Apple Sparkle Cake

When I was in undergrad, my father strictly prohibited me from getting a job. This, to me, seemed preposterous: who in their right mind would tell their daughter, whose work ethic had her employed for minimum wage at the age of fourteen, not to get a job? And more importantly, how was I going to pay my tab at the Beer Store?

While I snuck around this rule twice for extremely short periods of time (anyone remember my short-lived Hoops job, Torontonians? [… sorry Dad]), hindsight’s 20-20: why, oh why did I not take advantage of the fact that, when I was in school, being a student was my full-time job? And, more importantly, when am I going to realize once and for all that my father is right about everything?

Over the past month and a half, I’ve developped this dizzying feeling, this sensation that I’m living several lives at once.

There’s my life at work, the internship I loved from the moment I arrived. I’ve put my html knowledge to good use, I’ve learned to expertly take phone messages in French, and I’m getting better at riding the longboard that languishes on the floor of the loft, though the Shoe Fiend and I also spend a lot of time trying to get our bosses to let us play Taylor Swift in the office.

There’s my AUP life, the life that seems like it ended years ago, but that I remember every time I see the Artist and the Almost Frenchman. It’s only been a week since they left for Mexico, but it seems like years since I’ve seen them.

There’s my life at the Sorbonne, with the American Proust Fan, languishing over coffees as we fling our giant English vocabularies around without worrying about understanding or being understood. My professors are some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever had the privilege of being in the same room with, and I find myself scribbling nearly incoherently as I try to get down every last idea, every quote I want to read for hours later, only to contemplate it. But what hours?

When I get home, my life is writing: Nanowrimo has started, and on top of the freelance jobs that pay my bills (we hope…), I’m working on my novel. And catching up with friends. And feeding myself, the Roommate and the Country Boy. And sometimes remembering to wash my hair.

I love it. Let’s not pretend for even one minute that I wasn’t made to live like this, because, as I know by now, I don’t feel right if I’m not scrambling over a million deadlines, leaving my apartment and walking back through my front door all in the veil of half-night, spending more than half my day away from the place I call home. It’s why it’s so easy for me to go back to Paziols every year, why being a “writer” last year and living in my pajamas fit me about as well as my sister’s size seven shoes.

But tonight, something snapped. I’ve been trying to accomplish three full-time lifestyles and see as many of my friends as I can, and as I climbed the stairs this evening and ran through the list of things I still had to get done before getting to bed… it happened. It’s been awhile, but I finally got that feeling I used to get when I was younger, literal hot-headedness that had me sticking my neck under the bathroom sink in the hopes that it would let me sleep. I set my teeth together and “breathed through my eyelids” (which doesn’t make sense, but helps) as I defined a giant list of words relating to the five senses, half of my brain on my work, the other half still chanting that list of stuff I have to get done.

The Country Boy, ever astute, stared at me, thinking, before finally speaking, carefully (I don’t blame him. I tend to snap. And rant.)

“What do you want to do… right this minute?”

I don’t know where my answer came from. Even I couldn’t believe it. “Make a cake.”

The minute I said it, I smiled, hopped up, and started pulling ingredients out of the pantry: flour, sugar, eggs, apples. The Country Boy made fun of me–just minutes before I had been bemoaning the lack of hours in a day, but I was dead-set on cake making, and so a cake I did make.

It wasn’t anything intense: the Sous-Chef will remember that when I’m in the mood for muffins, there is no recipe, and this quickbread happend in the same way. I used a glass as a measuring device; I threw things into the bowl at random. I sprinkled raw sugar over the top, and when I pulled it out of the oven nearly an hour later, three things checked off my “to-do” list and another underway, it sparkled.

I feel better now.

Apple Sparkle Cake

I have a lot of experience using a glass as a measuring cup, but I won’t pretend that I know that these measurements are exact, though they’re pretty darn close. Use your judgement: the batter should look like muffin batter.

2 apples
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar + 2 tbsp. (I use about half Sugar in the Raw and half granulated sugar, but whatever proportions you use, the 2 Tbsp. should be Sugar in the Raw)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla or one packet vanilla sugar (for those living in France…)
1 1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan.

Grate the apples (skin and all) into a large mixing bowl. Add the oil, cup of sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix well to combine. Without mixing, add the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Carefully fold the dry ingredients into the wet, and pour into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the reserved sugar.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before slicing.