Donuts, Cupcakes and Cherry Bombe Magazine

Hands up if you dislike the word “blogger.” When you say you’re a blogger as your profession, there’s inside-eye-rolls and thoughts of “that’s not a real job.” Even I can’t take it seriously in my mind and I’ve been blogging since 2008. Of course I used to have a cake business attached to it, but now it’s just me, my camera and my computer, typing away til my eyes are bleary. It’s certainly not a 9-5 job – and I suppose it falls in line with the long list of random jobs I’ve had in my life, starting from my first job making DECORATIVE FRUIT BASKETS in the moldy freezing-cold basement of a long-gone family grocery store in Vancouver. I’d “shop” for the fruit first, rolling a grocery cart through the fresh produce aisles, piling the cart high with goods. Then, the fruit gets piled in a Jenga-like fashion to create a mound, all nestled in made-in-China brightly coloured weaved baskets, wrapped in plastic wrap and topped with a sticker-peel, cheap shiny bow. At least as a fruit-basket-maker you could count on a bi-weekly paycheque – not so much with blogging!

However… I got this nice email recently: “Your cake blog has been one of my absolute favorites since I found it a few years back; you are such an inspiration to me aesthetically as well as with how you live your life and how super real you are in a sea of plastic blogs.” Sometimes you just sit in your dark little room editing your photos in your pyjamas with a side plate of snacks and a milky hot tea and you really have no idea if people are reading, or caring whatsoever at what you’re putting out there. I mean, yes there’s google analytics. But without those emails, without comments from readers – it could all just be flash-in-the-pan “I found you on Pinterest and I’m gonna rip on your cake idea and I have no idea who you are and I don’t carrrreeeeee” visits. So when you get a genuine response from what you put out in the world, it truly means a lot.

  

You can imagine my stokage level when Kerry of Cherry Bombe sent me an email in the fall asking me if she could interview me for their upcoming issue. Stokage level: HIGH. (I’ve been a fan of Cherry Bombe magazine since before I even read an issue – just the CONCEPT of the mag – it brings together all of my favourite things: food, beautiful photography and design, and inspiring women.) Back in October when I posted my Breast Cancer Cakes, I really didn’t have any idea how people might respond. To me, it combined the heartache of last year’s cancer diagnosis and treatment with a blast of cakey inspiration; my blog had become about cancer and cakes, so why not literally create a cancer and cakes project? The post ended up reaching a lot of people, a lot of women. Cancer patients, friends, family, fans. Even my own oncologist! And it opened a door to an interview with Cherry Bombe!

Chinese Fugazi Mom! Cool as a pickle!

Reality Bites – there could be no better article title. Because I saw this movie many many times in my late teens (and no, sadly it doesn’t hold up – dialogue, OUCH!) and I know the soundtrack by heart and maybe even christened my place the Maxi Pad. Plus, I call my current growing-in-post-chemo-pixie-cut-by-accident the “Chinese Winona Ryder.” The universe is pulling some magic.

The Cherry Bombe vibe is one that feels based in community, building women up, being inspired by fellow women. It’s mature, innately feminist – it feels non-milennial – no race to the top, no image-card-based website that endlessly updates in a fervour of faster, now, immediate, click-bait, drowned in hashtags – Cherry Bombe doesn’t even share content on their website – readers must wait patiently for the next issue to come out, to savour those pretty, nicely-weighted pages, to pore over the issue like I would pore over the latest Sassy magazine as a teen.

I think I’m beginning to finally feel comfortable with writing whatever I like on my blog. If I want to review Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I guess I will. If I want to talk about infertility, I will. If I simply want to post a super cute cake, that is what I shall do.

And now, I’m going to leave you with this: The Runaways performing Cherry Bomb live in Japan. Because this is the song that runs through my head every time I see the magazine. I’m seriously thrilled to be a part of the Cherry Bombe community. xo Lyndsay The Blogger