A Guitar shaped cake

For a graduate course on writing, the class was assigned a paper to write about authenticity in teaching Composition. Composition classes in college teach students more about writing and learning how to write in a Academic setting. For this class, the professors and the readings we did for class focused on learning to write is a lot like learning how to cook.

The way that we learn to write starts from the very basics of learning the sounds of the Alphabet in school and how to write our letters. The basic building blocks. We first watch our teacher on the board do it. Make the sound and write out the letter A. But then it is our turn. We get handed the lined chalkboard to write out the letter A. We trace it or we write it out free-hand. Making mistakes. Learning as we go. Then we move to making words, then making phrases or clauses then sentences that turn into paragraphs. But the only real way to become a better writer from learning the basics to writing our first short story in elementary school to that first paper in junior high is to actually sit down and write. Just like cooking.

The thing about cooking is that it is a lot like learning to write. There are basic building blocks you learn. Most of the time by watching other cook. It can be family members like my mother and father making meals for us growing up. Spending the summers while my mom worked with my Grandma and Tia Licha in Southmost watching how they cooked us meals. Watching my Tia Licha make flour tortillas but she didn't just let you watch. She included you in the process. Which is how you learn how to cook. The true way to learn how to cook is to become a part of the process. Make mistakes along the way like that you fry the rice for Mexican rice before you boil it. That may accidentally leave out the baking powder when you are baking. Or put to much salt in fideo. Which also led me to learning like my mother said it easier to add salt then to take it out. Because yes you can add a potato to the soup. But if it way to much salt that potato will not help and you have to start all over again.

For this class, I wrote about that when I decided to not go to law school but become a teacher. That I wanted to teach writing and be a writer. That I would get a masters in English. I was inspired by my great-grand father. I grew up watching him play music from the guitar to the accordion. He was also a carpenter for work. He also made six-string guitars. It was working on this project that I learned from my mother that my great-grandfather did not pick up guitar making till after his wife died.

After hanging out with my Tia Licha in the kitchen. I would hang out with great-grandfather in his work studio. I loved watching him work. There was a process for every step. For the way the wood was cut to the shape of the guitar, to the way the strings were connected and it all had to be done a certain way to make sure it worked. This made me think if I want to be writer rather it is teaching writing to other students or publishing my work. I had to write even if that means making mistakes along the way.

The professor wanted us to our academic journal to make something. It did not have to be food. Some knitted. For me, I have always loved to baked. I learned to bake from my mother. Every Christmas, all of us in the family would get together and bake cookies. We would help my mother make plates to give to our neighbors. And I remember her making plates for each of the kids in my class. I knew I wanted to make a guitar shaped cake. I did my research. Mostly I wanted to see if they had a cake pan, they did but it was expensive and it was to little. It was not what I saw in my head. I saw a photo on the internet of a restaurant making a guitar shaped chip. So I new I was going to have to shape this cake myself.

The same way that the only way you can learn how to cook or write is by being a part of the process. People are part of the process of learning. What we see, what we hear, the good, the negative, the people who offer to help... it all helps us to learn. I learned the kind of teacher I didn't want to be because of how my first grade teacher treated me like a trouble maker thinks to my dyslexia. My brother is a better drawer then me. So he drew the guitar. I used the scissors to cut it out. Then a bread knife to shape my cake. I am not a cake decorator. I also do not like fondant because it doesn't taste good. It looks good. Also there not enough frosting under it that if you take it off. I like frosting on my cake. I also like home-made cream cheese frosting because the store bought kind does not taste like cream cheese. I am a firm believer that it should taste like cream cheese not sugar. I used home-made cream cheese frosting. Candies from my childhood to decorate it. Since I grew up on the border next to Mexico. I used a mix of American and Mexican candies. - Adela