Bake Around the World: Write in the Kitchen: Colombia, Rice Pudding and Gregory

This year, I am endeavoring on a monthly challenge to bake around the world; write in the kitchen. The idea is inspired by Erin, my friend and author of This Footprint blog who participated in a cooking challenge for every country. Each month, I will randomly select a country and make a vegan version of a traditional dessert from that nation. And, each month, I will put intentional time into writing at least one non-Smile Project related piece. I look forward to expanding my confectionary acumen and baking around the world. And I look forward to sitting closer to home, writing for myself.  

The whole thing happened, essentially, in a standard business day. In early March, I was visiting my parents and, after a far-too-dramatic-for-8:00-in-the-morning drumroll, I pulled up the random country generator and had my father press the button. It landed on Colombia. 

Colombia is located in northwest South America and has 800 miles of beautiful Pacific Ocean coastline. According to Brittanica, “The population is largely concentrated in the mountainous interior, where Bogotá, the national capital, is situated on a high plateau in the northern Andes Mountains.” And, from Kpedia, “Colombian cuisine varies regionally and is particularly influenced by Indigenous Colombian, Spanish, and African cuisines, with slight Arab influence in some regions. Furthermore, being one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, Colombia has one of the widest variety of available ingredients depending on the region.”

I pulled up an article about traditional Colombian desserts and began to read aloud pastries and treats until I got to “Colombian rice pudding…”

“Oh I love rice pudding; that sounds so good!” my mom said from the other room. 

“Cool, let’s make rice pudding.” 

I opened a new tab and found “My Colombian Recipes,” a blog by Erica Dinho who was born and raised in Colombia and—inspired by her maternal grandmother’s cooking—created the recipe website in 2019. (Follow Erica at @mycolombianrecipes on Instagram for more cooking inspo.) Erica had a recipe for arroz con leche Colombiano—Colombian rice pudding. I was sold. 

That afternoon, my dad and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients (like vegan sweetened condensed milk—made from coconut milk) and by close of business my parents house smelled ridiculously sweet and warm and welcoming. My only swaps for the recipe were butter and milk to vegan butter and non-dairy milk, meaning this could very well become something I make again and again and again. It also was fairly simple, even though I’d never made rice pudding before!

Now despite picking my country and fulfilling my baking challenge in the first few days of the month, it took me a bit longer to get to the writing part of the challenge. Nearly every weekend in March wasn’t spent at my apartment, the time and place where I do the most writing. With my schedule not exactly slowing down and the end of the month seeming to speed up, I knew I had to make a move. 

Enter a Thursday morning with no work meetings. I walked to a neighborhood coffee shop that is fast becoming one of the favorites and arrived before the owners. On the walk, I had wondered if I was really so busy or if I was just experiencing a sort of writer's block. January and February had come quite easy. But now I felt stuck.

I was halfway to the coffee shop when I noticed the traffic seemed quieter. Nobody was honking. Folks were waving each other on. “The cars are nicer in the morning,” I thought. 

And just like that, I had my first line. I spent the earliest morning hours in the coffee shop, building off that thought and when my work day began, seamlessly switched to that, feeling energized and excited about the space I had carved for this personal writing.

Things I searched online while writing the piece:

• what decade had colorful sofas?

• Great Wall of China (images)

• how much do baby cameras cost?

• or baby monitors I guess yes, sure

Later, as I stood in my kitchen making lunch, I found myself laughing out loud about what I had written and specifically the fact that I had named a Jack Russell Terrier “Gregory.” 

Writing is really so cool.

This month reminded me how to move fast and slow. Sometimes you make rice pudding in the course of a few hours. Sometimes it takes you a month to name a dog Gregory. But in both cases, I ended up with something I was really proud of. Perhaps then, this serves as a reminder of the varying races we run… and the ways in which we move closer to our goals on our own timelines.

January: to beignets and book proposals 

February: to spice cake and sunscreen.

March: to rice pudding and Gregory.

When the world shut down and her company moved fully remote, the first thing Shawna did was attend an animal fostering virtual volunteer seminar. She anticipated fostering, at first, mostly as a way to have company and feel connected to another living thing. She had taken to ordering groceries online, and between sleeping, eating, and working in the same room, it crossed her mind that without some external stimulation, she might go insane. Or worse, she might find she liked the loneliness too much.