Just in the nick of time and since I know ya’ll were on the edge of your seats waiting for what dessert I’d make next, here’s what I made and what I read in the month of July! July has been my favorite month of this entire year and because I filled it with so many good things, it went by way too quick. The word “real” has been on my heart this month and it’s been challenging to define what that means for me and what it looks like in my day-to-day life. I’ve realized that I don’t want a life made up of pretty photos and filters, but I want a life made up of moments. I want to be present with the people, the moments, and the opportunities that are here and now instead of allowing nostalgia pull me into the past and anxiety to pull me into the future.
It’s required a great deal of intentionality (not a word, but it should be). And to be honest, it’s taken a lot of mental energy, but the connectedness to people and to my inner self has been worth every messy effort. In the month of July, I went on a first-ever road trip with my mom and sister to Boulder, Colorado. I tried four new restaurants. Explored three new cities. I volunteered. I went to my first outdoor, big-name concert. I made this dessert. I read this book. With my 30th birthday quickly approaching, I’m feeling the truth that life passes by in brief moments and I’m trying to wrap my arms around all of what life has to offer me…starting with a new dessert and book!
THE RECIPE
This recipe is kind of special to me. Because I work for a baking brand and am I self-acclaimed dessert aficionado, I’m never at a loss for recipes to make. Plus with the millions of recipes found all over Pinterest and the Internet, it’s actually a little difficult to narrow down what to make next. But this month’s dessert recipe came straight from a good ol’ fashioned cookbook. I hafta say, there’s something incredibly nostalgic and heart-warming about opening up a cookbook filled with flour-dusted, butter-smeared pages—especially when that cookbook is filled with family recipes. My grandpa gave me a cookbook filled with beloved and trusted recipes handed down from his family. The cover of the cookbook has a photo of my great-great grandmother on it and says “A collection of favorite family recipes and memories compiled by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. C.J. Rold” so it’s practically a family heirloom.
There were a few recipes that my grandma contributed like Boston Cream and Easy Blueberry Squares, but my heart was drawn in by Cherry Bars from Ellie Whitaker. I don’t know who Ellie Whitaker is or was, but she sounds like someone that I would absolutely adore. First, because her name is Ellie Whitaker and second, because she has a recipe for Cherry Bars.
I was a little intimidated to make a recipe from this cookbook because there. are. zero. photos. And I’ve come to rely on step shots and beauty images of the final result that reassure me I’m following each step correctly, so this was a real leap of faith for me. Not to mention, that the first ingredient it calls for is a cup of oleo. Google translated that for me into margarine.
The recipe comes together in about 10 minutes and is ready to be served in less than an hour—my kind of dessert. It calls for icing drizzled over the top—Ellie is my kind of girl. But I omitted the icing because I’m watching my sugar intake…j/k, I was too lazy to make icing. So if you’d like our secret family recipe for Cherry Bars, you know where to find me!
The Book
This month’s book could have been written by me. It wasn’t, but it could have been. I had never heard of Choosing Real before but I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore and I knew it was coming home with me. From the title to the gold confetti, it felt like this book was destined to be intertwined with my early morning and coffee ritual. The tagline “an invitation to celebrate when life doesn’t go as planned” felt like a real-life invitation to just step into the unknown where anything can happen to which I was RSVP’ing with a hand-in-the-air, pick-me-pick me yes.
Bekah Jane Pogue is a blogger, writing coach, author and speaker. I know that if and when I ever meet Bekah Jane Pogue, we’ll be instant friends. I knew that by page three of Choosing Real. Bekah shares her love for entertaining and parties and baking which just so happens to be three of my non-negotiables when it comes to choosing friends. She often references doughnuts in her book and I think you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of doughnuts they like. Obviously the kind of people who go for the doughnuts with sprinkles are the best kind of people. This can also be applied to the people who like apple fritters. But anyways.
The entire premise of Choosing Real originates from a time of tremendous grief in Bekah’s life after she lost her dad unexpectedly—a tragedy that hits close to home for me. And as we know, grief demands to be felt and requires realness without any way around it. Bekah describes the moment when she had no other choice but to show up with her real self because she didn’t have energy to be anything else for anyone else:
My dad’s sudden passing became the catalyst to noticing how Jesus is more authentic than I had ever before experienced. As I stepped into the pain of loss, into foggy weeks of numbness and standing outside of my body, life shifted. They say suffering does that, and it’s entirely true. And freeing. Alone with my thoughts, I recognized self-made habits I’d built around control.
Perhaps if I host more, work harder, or make this person feel special, I’ll feel better. The only bummer was that I no longer cared. I was done fighting. I was over manufacturing a perfect faith. I was relinquishing my agenda. For the first time, I was. I didn’t do. I simply existed. For the first time, I released all of my people-pleaser, perfection-aspiring goals, the to-do lists, and faces I strived to make happy, and I got real down and dirty with my Lord. Getting real with Him saved my life. He drew me into safe corners that I hadn’t known were tangible. Into foreign spaces I’d ignored all my life. Suddenly I was keenly aware that every circumstance, person and feeling is an invitation to see God’s genuine heart in the middle of it.”
Her entire book is an account of the way God showed up in the real and ordinary moments in her life. From social media to friendships and marriage, Bekah describes her encounters with real and with God in using down-to-earth, practical words. Her writing is relatable and conversational, so much so, that she feels like a familiar friend to me, one that I’d like to have coffee with—today and often. And for Pete’s sake! She shares a recipe for chocolate cake in chapter eight. This woman is my soul sister through and through. Check out the book trailer below and you’ll know what I mean!