The Sweet Life

Like half the people you know, my family and I got Covid at Christmas. It was a mild case for all of us, and we’ve made a full recovery. So this isn’t a story about Covid. 

This is a story about hope, peace and a rebirth of the soul. This is a story about The Great British Baking Show.

For years, friends have been waxing rhapsodic about the show, extolling its calming virtues, encouraging me to tune in. I didn’t even entertain the idea. The show seemed stiff and dull. As a person with three kids in three different schools, I spend a lot of time at Zoom PTA meetings and I meet my yearly quota for stiff, dull content by February. Though I was a veritable reality TV junky in my twenties, today, most reality TV makes my gorge rise. My fourteen-year-old, known in these parts as Seconda, made me watch an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” a few months ago and afterwards, I was more nihilistic than Nietzche on a bad day. 

Then came Covid. On the first day of isolation, only Seconda and I had tested positive, so we hunkered down in our convalescence room and fired up Netflix. She suggested watching the new season of The Great British Baking Show, recommended by some of her friends. Or was it called The Great British Bakeoff, she wondered? She couldn’t be sure.

“Okay,” I agreed. If there was ever a time to watch a dumb TV show, I figured it was while you had Covid. I was feeling far too crummy to focus on plotlines, appreciate stylistic flourishes, or feel resonance with engaging characters. Odds were good I’d be asleep within ten minutes. What I needed was an innocuous image to flicker before my eyes and a soundscape to massage my ears, alleviating the endless tedium of illness. 

The opening credits assured me I’d made the right decision. As chipper piano chords played, fingers placed raspberries on an inviting bed of silky chocolate icing. Unseen hands sprinkled confectioner’s sugar onto neat rows of cookies, calling to mind a soft, sweet snowstorm. A random redheaded child, looking adorably British, glanced over her shoulder, eagerly anticipating the confection baking in the oven. Life is sweet, the opening credits seemed to say. You may feel like garbage now but you will feel better soon. Everything’s going to be okay. 

I did doze off within a half hour, but both Seconda and I were pleasantly surprised by the charm of the show, which I’m making the executive decision to call “Bakeoff” as the Brits do. We were tickled by the wide array of British accents, and delighted by the use of words and phrases we’d never heard before: “stodgy,” “neat as a pin,” and of course, the irresistible “soggy bottoms.” The next day, we cracked each other up by assuming our best British accents (Seconda, quite posh, Queenly even; me, Liverpool all the way) and hurling insults intended for cakes and breads at each other: “You’re under-baked!” and “A bit rough and ready, you are!”

Later that afternoon, my husband David tested positive and joined the Sick Room. 

“What’s going on in here?” he asked when he heard the accents. 

“We’ve discovered The Great British Bakeoff,” I told him, “Today, they’re making brandysnaps! Who has any earthly idea what those are? But don’t they sound delightful? Brandysnaps!”

“Brandysnaps!” Seconda parroted. It’s just a really fun word to say. 

David, an avowed shortbread lover, was smitten immediately, though he did not succumb to our accent mania. He has some British in him, and way too much decorum for that. 

Days passed, though to call them days overstates our conception of time. The hours bled together as we slept and sniffled, swallowed Tylenol, drank tea, slept some more. In between our bouts of sleeping, we’d watch Bakeoff, and after a few days, we understood the rhythm of the show, and became more deeply invested. Now, in addition to our accents, passerbys could hear our exclamations, “There’s no way that meringue’s going to set! There’s just not enough time!” and “She has outdone herself! Are you seeing this mirror glaze?” 

My youngest daughter, Terza, age nine, had the good fortune not to catch Covid, but the bad fortune to be left to her own devices in the other room for days on end. Her only possible Covid-free playmate, seventeen-year-old brother Primo, was up to his eyeballs in college applications, due on New Years. So it was that one night, a few days into our isolation, Terza Facetimed us. 

“You’re all together,” she moaned. “And I have no one to play with.” 

“All we’re doing is sleeping and watching Bakeoff,” I consoled her. “And you can watch it too – on your Ipad.” 

And so it was that another fan joined our ranks. 

Eventually, our isolation ended and the endless parade of hours took the shape of mornings, afternoons and evenings again. Soon after the kids returned to school, I was having lunch with David, reflecting on what a crazy, un-vacation-y vacation it had been.

“At least we had Bakeoff,” I pointed out. 

“Since we were sick the whole time, part of me feels like maybe Bakeoff is a Covid fever-dream we invented collectively,” David said. “Maybe we hallucinated the whole thing.” 

“Only one way to find out,” I said, grabbing the remote. 

And there it was, same jangly piano tune, same perfect raspberries, same random redheaded girl – and really, what is that child doing there? Who does she belong to? There are no children in Bakeoff! – all of it, just the same.

Since our recovery, we’ve moved from binge-waiting Bakeoff to savoring it, one small morsel at a time. Terza can safely join our ranks now, and the four of us pile onto the couch, burrowing under blankets, as comfortable physically as we are mentally, soothed instantly by the close-ups of butter being whipped and eggs being cracked (Primo has not succumbed to the Bakeoff charm, but we have hope for him yet).

The fatigue of Covid has mostly worn off but I’ll still be asleep by the time the credits roll, because Bakeoff, as David says, is Video Valium. When I sleep, my dreams are sweet, or at least of the sort I won’t remember. And that’s because on Bakeoff, nothing can harm you, or your feelings. When Paul tells someone their bread dough is under-proven, well, that’s because it is, and it’s okay, because, come on, everyone under-proves their dough sometimes. If Prue regretfully informs someone their cake is dry and over-baked, it’s not a judgment on their character, just constructive feedback, and they can always try again next time – until they can’t, which is ultimately okay too. The absolute worst thing we’ve ever seen happen on Bakeoff is the time the baker named Ruby, put a double-layer cake on top of another double-layer cake, and it was too tall and too wobbly, and the top cake leeeeeeeeeaned over, in excruciating slow motion, until the whole thing toppled onto the counter. It was ghastly, yes, and we gasped and grabbed each others’ hands as we watched Ruby notice what had happened. She began to cry, cupping her mouth, and then something incredible happened – and it’s the same incredible thing that always happens when a bake goes wrong on the show. 

The fellow bakers – her rivals – stopped what they were doing, and rushed over to hug her, and whisper encouragement as they rubbed her back. They said, “How can I help?” They picked up the colossal mess of cake – smashed, crushed, just utterly ruined – and they helped her figure out how to make it better.

This is the magic of Bakeoff, what keeps us coming back for more. For an hour, we get to escape to a version of the world where people, as a rule, are kind, and the joy of creation is rivaled only by the pleasure of sharing it. We get to escape to a world where nothing bad will happen, because nothing bad can happen, a world where everyone’s a winner by virtue of having had a chance to play. For an hour, we get to feel safe and together. And it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.  e

Nicole C. Kear is the author of ten books for children and the memoir, Now I See You, for adults. You can learn more about her work at nicolekear.com.