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Writer's pictureLalita Dileep

Baking - The Post Pandemic Hobby

Finding solace and family fun through Baking


We have all fallen in love with Flour. As each day bleeds into the next, forcing everyone indoors, faced with an uncertain future, almost every household was certain about the need to bake.


During the initial days, flour hung around on shelves while people bought up dried beans, canned tomatoes, pasta and rice. After the initial anxiety of the pandemic wave coursed through, the most common household goods to disappear from grocery store shelves were disinfectants: hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, Lysol. Bottled water, toilet paper and hand soaps were snatched up once companies started advising workers to stay home. This was followed by video-game consoles, microphones used to record podcasts, and at-home pedicure supplies.


But soon flour was nowhere to be found in stores, and it disappeared from the internet too. The only proof of where it had all gone was evidenced on none other than Facebook, which became flooded with photos of homemade focaccias, pancakes, and banana breads. On Instagram, homemakers discovered sourdough as a concept. Everyone was baking a ton, and the nation’s flour supply had fallen victim to our newfound hobby.


Getting creative in tough times


Truly, baking is a comforting activity for many of us. It can be therapeutic and cathartic all rolled into one and requires both physical and mental focus. The best part? Kids can be enlisted to help! The kitchen and the whole house smells divine and then everyone has cookies, bread, pizza, cup cakes and many more delicious goodies to indulge in.


Do-it-yourself kits became popular with customers during the initial months of social distancing, while helping bakeries bolstered their sales in a unique way. Even novices have been baking up a storm while stuck inside. With the times turned on its head we look for ways to cope and there is no doubt that cooking and baking brings comfort.


While cooking is an art, baking is largely a science, with exact measurements of key ingredients more like a chemistry. This activity is not just comforting but also gives a sense of satisfaction from having control during uncertain and troubling times.


Kitchen: The Heart of the Home


The epidemic has drawn us back to the heart of the home - the kitchen. Where families gather, conversations happen, laughter and fun reverberate, memories are made.


Without easy access to restaurants, fast-food chains, as well as visits to grocery stores for working families, staying out of the kitchen was no longer an option. Baking has become both an inexpensive activity, as well as engaging family time, and produces meals and snacks several times in a day.


The pandemic-inspired rush to baking is a good reminder that for many modern families usually caught up in the hectic pace of life, their arm's length relationship with the kitchen has been turned on it's head. Now, all this has been dramatically altered and baking has cast a glow of well being across homes.


We hope you too have discovered the joys of baking, camaraderie in the kitchen and the warmth from the oven fills your heart (and your tummy).


We are stronger together


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