For several years now, I’ve tried living my life by one rule: feeling fulfilled.
It was a Friday evening and the other reporters were gone. My editor was fixing his dinner when I stopped by to say goodnight, wrapping up my first week as a full-time reporter.
“Do you feel fulfilled?” he asked between bites of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which smelled incredible.
I wasn’t sure how to respond because I didn’t understand the question.
“What do you mean? I don’t follow,” I responded.
“At the end of each day this week, have you felt like the work you’ve done mattered? When you go home and go to bed, do you feel rewarded? Gratified?”
I thought for a moment.
The apartment complex fire that happened mere hours before I started my new gig led to me waking up to about 10 texts from the editor as he updated me on what I had to do the next day, a capital murder trial and a meeting about trees (which no matter the community, is a hot-button issue).
All of that right from the start.
“Absolutely,” I said. “This is my dream job. I always wanted to be a reporter.”
Relative chaos ensued for months after I started, but it was a great team.
It was a newspaper that published six days a week and there were only a few of us in the newsroom.
My first day there, the editor and two other reporters took me on a “family lunch.” It was a cute cafe in the town, and it was a tradition each time someone new joined the team, or left.
I ordered the tuna salad sandwich on a croissant. There was a lot of cucumber on the sandwich.
When I left that newspaper, we talked the sports reporter into joining us at a hot dog restaurant down the street. He dared me to try one slathered with peanut butter and jelly. The deal was I just had to try it. They used Texas toast for buns.
It was amazing.
As I figured out my way professionally, I began testing the waters with baking and cooking.
Until that point on my career path and in the kitchen, I was a little timid.
But, as that editor pointed out my first week on the job, I needed to feel fulfilled. That should translate into culinary arts, too, right?
During a random conversation one day months later, the editor asked if I’d make a hummingbird cake. A few months before, I happened to come across that recipe.
An incredibly sweet, three-layer cake with pineapple, banana and spices, it’s topped with a cream cheese frosting.
“Sure, I can make it.”
Just like diving head-first into a new career with national headlining stories, here was another challenge accepted.
Believe me when I say it was an absolute mess to look at.
It was delicious, though.
I did make the cake a couple more times in that newsroom and haven’t made it since.
Give it a try and I guarantee it’ll give you a feeling of fulfillment when you’re all done and marvel at the finished, delicious dessert.
Share your favorite recipes and memories with Features Editor Ashley Fox at afox@tribtoday.com.
Hummingbird Cake
For the sponge:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 16-ounce can crushed pineapple with juice
4 large, very ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup pecans
For the frosting:
1 1/4 cups butter, room temperature
5 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
20 ounces cream cheese, chilled and cut into pieces
Sponge:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Grease three 8-inch cake pans, or two 9-inch pans.
In a saucepan, drain the pineapple. Cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, then set aside. (It should reduce.) Set the flesh pineapple aside.
In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
In another bowl, combine sugar and eggs, then oil.
Stir in bananas, pecans, vanilla, drained pineapple flesh and reduced pineapple juice. Stir until it’s just combined.
Divide the batter between the cake pans.
Bake 35 minutes (maybe a little longer depending on your oven).
Cool completely.
Frosting:
Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until smooth. Continue beating while adding cream cheese pieces until smooth.
Assemble your cake, generously frosting each layer.
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