Archive Issue - Monthly Tidbits Article
January 2008

What Is Your New Year's Resolution?
by Jill Jackson

When I was young, I hated math. Despised it, deplored it, threw my hands up in the air and cursed it. I was a baker, a writer, a poet, not a mathematician—not at all. Imagine my surprise when I graduated from the personal world of baking to the professional one, how numbers would change my life.

In the world of baking, we work with measurements all day long. It is what separates success from failure. The wrong amount of baking powder can make your favorite cake sink. Too much sugar cannot only make something sweeter, but may also inhibit the baking process while in the oven. Many often look at me in wonder when I say I use mathematics on a daily basis. I don’t just follow a recipe from a book. Part of the challenge of creating your own recipes is the unusual amounts of ingredients necessary and ultimately used to bear the fruits of the labor.

Not only do the pastries require your everyday fractions, but should you need to double, triple or quadruple the recipe in order to achieve maximum throughput and feed as many hungry, dessert loving consumers as possible, you need way more accuracy than originally planned. Multiplication and division become your new best friend, your calculator your mentor and your conversion tables the be-all-and-end-all to the culinary masterpiece.

Not a math whiz, I myself have come to the conclusion that during the New Year I must face my fears, intimidations and weaknesses and embrace the challenges.

What is your New Year’s Resolution?

I must admit that every year I give this question some thought once the dust of the Christmas rush has settled and I am given the gift of ‘alone time’. When I was younger, I wished for love and as the years passed I added a bit of specificity to my resolutions. Some of these included a cup of health, some a dash of money, a pinch of love and in many cases, a bushel of patience should I not achieve the goals I set for myself.

I resolve to keep these classics, these core values and desires, and expand my horizons. I will believe in the process that makes my recipes special, thank those that help me do it and measure it all with the heart.

I wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year!