00:03
There’s something to be said
00:04
about the role of queer bakers.
00:07
We often end up providing comfort
00:08
to those who may not have given it to us.
00:11
[air whooshing] [gentle music]
00:13
Any dessert really, subsists on the strength
00:16
of the anticipation that it provokes.
00:18
Doesn’t matter if it’s a slice of flan, or some tiramisu,
00:21
the hope is that within a few bites,
00:23
the dessert will transport you to a place much warmer,
00:26
more familiar, than where you began.
00:29
For me, bread pudding runs the table.
00:39
The American South is indisputably a bread pudding capital.
00:43
On my block, no one had any real money,
00:45
but for bread pudding, you didn’t need it.
00:50
Everyone kept bread in his pantry.
00:53
It didn’t need to be fresh, even better if it wasn’t.
00:57
Stale bread sopped up more batter,
00:59
giving the pudding a forgiving crunch.
01:02
Some cream, and a handful of basic utensils,
01:05
and you worked straight at a minor symphony of sweetness.
01:15
[microwave beeping]
01:18
It’s comforting to know
01:19
that you can take an armful of leftovers,
01:21
and create something that’ll change your whole fucking day.
01:29
[whisk whirring] [gentle music]
01:31
I honestly couldn’t tell you
01:32
the first time I made bread pudding on my own.
01:35
I know that the first rounds were a gooey, lumpy mishmash.
01:38
The filling wasn’t nearly as sweet as it needed to be.
01:42
My parents accepted their kid’s new ambition
01:44
as a half-ass baker, and their friends accepted it too.
01:48
At cookouts, and watch parties,
01:50
where they nursed Red Stripes, and Shiners.
02:04
None of us had the lexicon
02:05
for the queerness that I was already, by then,
02:08
well aware would come to define me.
02:13
We stayed silent on that front.
02:16
Filling the void with damn near anything else.
02:18
Football, school, driving lessons.
02:22
But it didn’t cost anything, emotionally,
02:24
to take a bite of pudding.
02:29
So, I kept baking for the rest of my years at home.
02:32
Until I moved out to find my own,
02:34
and the dish became creamier, more sumptuous,
02:36
preferably laced with white chocolate,
02:38
and doused with a sauce of condensed milk.
02:46
Bread pudding was the first thing that I baked
02:48
after I came out to my parents.
02:51
One batch for myself,
02:53
because holy fuck. [dramatic music]
02:54
Then later, one for my mother.
02:57
Scalding and soaked in coconut milk, splashed with rum.
03:01
A few weeks after that, I made another, for my father.
03:04
Sans the alcohol, but with an extra sprinkling of sugar.
03:37
Bread pudding was the dessert
03:39
that I cooked a few months back,
03:41
for family members whom I hadn’t seen in ages.
03:44
And it made sense that we’d seek the certainty,
03:47
given the tentative relationships we were wading through.
03:55
But, before they’d even dropped their jackets,
03:58
we were already cutting slices.
04:01
Dribbling sauce into each bowl.
