Loosening the Cinnamon Handcuffs

The psychology of pushing boundaries, inspired by my grandmother's pound cake.

“Freestyle or New York Times cooking?” 

I asked myself as I entered my kitchen to bake.

Having taken to baking as a kid, I couldn’t help but notice a delicious divide among my fellow bakers - even within the few in my family.

On one side, we had the recipe fundamentalists, like my sister who wouldn’t dare swap out walnuts for pecans, lest she commit a culinary sin worthy of excommunication. 

And on the other side, we had the rebels, the renegades, the experimental souls who got a kick out of tossing in something unexpected like candied ginger or a sprinkle of sea salt just to keep life interesting. Like my grandmother. 

Even though she spent most of her life in the country-side, a 70’s magazine recipe for cake had made its way to the tiny village which barely received any electricity. Using sand, hot coal pieces and a big covered vessel, my grandmother constructed an improvised oven, and concocted the most addictive pound cake - she used ghee instead of butter.

Decades later, at our home in Bangalore, a bustling metropolitan city in India, baking cake was a complete family affair. My parents, grandmom, sister and I would sit in a circle in the living room, taking turns to cream the clarified butter and sugar, and beat the eggs in until our wrists hurt and foreheads glistened with sweat. 

Those cakes never lasted long. Hot out of the oven, my sister and I would watch over the brown-crusted vanilla goodness as it cooled down, taking in buttery whiffs.. We'd all gather around the table devouring pieces over lively conversation. 

There was something enchanting about a sticky, gooey mass of batter metamorphing into sweet, decadent fluffiness. It was miraculous to my young, curious eyes – not unlike a sapling transforming into a tree within the hour.

I started off baking as a recipe purist. Knowing exactly how things would turn out was a source of great comfort. A 4.8 star rated ‘best banana cake ever’ recipe, testified by thousands of others, made me feel safe; a security net which absolved me of any wrong turns. David Lebovitz or Dorie Greenspan could squarely take the blame for a flat cake. 

However, recipe discipline or free-spirited experimentation wasn't just about baking preferences, I realised. It was a fascinating glimpse into one’s approach to life itself.

My chinese order-in never deviated from vegetables in black pepper sauce, nor did the white-blue-grey shades of my clothing.

Many years later, in my college library, an absolutely unexpected source influenced my baking journey, and way of life too.  

As I was reading ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, by the brilliant Daniel Kahneman, a sharp turn in my path of surety revealed itself.

He speaks of several ‘shortcuts’ our mind takes while making decisions, which he refers to as heuristics. While he delves into many of these and how they influence our decisions, two of them stayed with me beyond the book: Status quo bias and risk aversion. 

The status quo bias refers to individuals' tendency to prefer maintaining the current state of affairs rather than seeking change, even when change could lead to better outcomes.  

Risk aversion, on the other hand, is the inclination to favour certainty over uncertainty. This means, we choose options that offer outcomes that are certain, even if it means foregoing a bigger gain that might be uncertain. 

This was a major revelation for me. Observing my choices closely, I found my stubborn recipe following behaviour was rooted in this subconscious need to remain risk-averse within my mental comfort zone.

I was prioritising security over exploration. Certainly, jobs and relationships providing financial stability and peace of mind are essential. But was I exhibiting a 'status-quo, risk averse’' mindset in daily life? I shied away from an exciting new pancake mix simply because it was new. And passed on that floral printed shirt because plain solids are more ‘me’. 

I valued the ‘tried and tested’ over trying and testing.

But what if those thousands of raving "best banana cake ever!" reviews didn't quite dance with my own discerning palate? Perhaps a bohemian sprinkle of rosemary was my song? I'd never discover those unconventional flavours though, if I followed cookie-cutter scripts.

Pushing past that comfort zone didn't require dramatic life changes, like throwing away my career to become a mountain recluse, or blowing my savings at the roulette table. 

Not in the least. 

It was about embracing tiny, seemingly inconsequential risks -  grabbing some funky blue spice mix to experiment with in the kitchen, wandering new towns sans GPS, actually talking to that vaguely sketchy-looking person I'd normally sidestep.

But taking those modest leaps was never easy. Our minds are practically hard-wired to cling desperately to the status quo, like it's the very last safe haven.

That hesitation to strike up a chat with a total stranger? Extremely palpable. Or the faint worry niggling at the back of my mind when wandering without Google Maps' omniscient guidance? It’s right there.

But just as my ultra-wise grand-mom seemed to innately know that swapping ghee for butter probably wouldn't trigger a village-war, Kahneman reminded me the potential downsides of these small disruptions are quite trivial, when I view life from a broader perspective.

Knowing this has allowed me to make very conscious, deliberate choices to unstick myself from that familiar territory. 

Rather than constantly attempting to burst through boundaries in dramatic fashion, it just takes frequent, playful, low-stakes forays into the unknown.

Sometimes those tiny tumbles left me flat on my face.

Like my failed culinary journey crafting an inedible gloppy horror out of raw jackfruit. Or that time I got hopelessly entangled in Jaipur's labyrinth of chaotic alleys. Or when I discovered zero common ground with the rambling stranger on a flight.

But those face-plants were small prices to pay for stumbling into an aromatic soap boutique after following my nose down a colourful side street in Marseille. For experiencing the warmth of an elderly Amman local who, after bonding over ice cream, invited me over for a home cooked dinner in her modest abode. For expanding my palate by grabbing that alien-looking cactus fruit at the farmer's market last week - a pleasing pineapple-guava-lime tropical symphony in my mouth.

String these tiny disruptions all together over time? They have quietly renovated the interiors of my personality. Years of these modest pushes into the unknown have significantly stretched the confines of my erstwhile "safe-zone." 

One such journey transformed me from a wallflower in meetings to a confident conference speaker. It all started with a baby step - challenging myself to speak up just once during a meeting, instead of being a silent spectator. A small act, yet immensely relieving and empowering once I broke that internal  barrier.

Having gotten a taste of this several times, I upped the ante - making myself speak up twice per meeting. I soon realized the time between thinking "I should say something" and actually vocalizing it was when things went haywire in my head. The longer that gap, the worse the nerves induced palpitations.

Once I cracked that code, I trained myself to shell out insights the moment they materialized - no filter, no hesitation. My confidence soared as the palpitations plummeted. From there, leading teams, delivering presentations - they were all incremental escalations toward that first conference appearance. While it was not the perfect start, it was a definite step towards becoming a version of myself I never imagined possible.

Today, as I enter the kitchen, I decide to fall back on a reassuringly familiar recipe - Ottolenghi’s blueberry lemon cake. Perhaps I’ll swap the cinnamon with a dash of rosemary.