Big Boobs and Buttercream

It was really beautiful weather yesterday. Warm with a cooling breeze, sunny and flowery. Waking to this Saturday balminess after weeks of rain and a lot of corporate travel involving squashing myself into budget aeroplanes so small your handluggage is measured, this was too good an opportunity to miss. I promptly jettisoned all my dutiful chore related Saturday plans, climbed into tie dye shorts and a tank top, and took to the streets. Halfway to a shop to stock up on peanut butter so I could treat my kids to chocolate peanut butter squares, I am ogled. Unmistakeably. A pudgy guy standing outside a DIY shop stares at me, slack jawed, his eyes fixed on my tits. Now here is a thing. I have always had average sized boobs. But lately, well, they've grown a bit. Age and all. They're not, you know, silicone city, but they are more noticeable than they were, and a growing population of locals appears to be taking an interest in them, principally of course as the weather warms and I shed layers of clothes. Having my boobs ogled is not an attention I crave in life. I hate it. On my most recent work trip, on the way back I was seated next to two Korean guys who did not bother to disguise their delight at being sat too uncompromisingly closely next to a woman of, shall we say, slightly more European proportions. Luckily, budget travel tends to denude you of social skills, so as gross as they became, I was confidently able to match them in pared down rudeness. We glowered at each other for the duration of the flight, me contemptuously, them slightly more laciviously. Anyway. Back to the street. On my way back from the shop, plastic bag of peanut butter jars in my hand, Sleazoid Git has found a few of his mates and now they are all ranged outside the DIY shop, staring at me, hands in their pockets. I see them out of my peripherals, debate a minute, turn my head towards them, and stick my middle finger up. The key to doing this by the way,is to behave nonchalant. Very important not to betray anger in an ogling situation. When performing the motion, you need to do it almost incidentally. I achieve this and the bunch of Losers With Little In Their Lives puff on their fags and look away, at least for a few seconds. This does little to assuage my anger though. Let's be clear that even in 2014 after decades of self determination for women, it can be bloody hard enough without the extra aggro of not being able to walk your local streets without intimidation. I am still simmering when I walk through the door and I conclude that peanut butter squares are not going to be sufficiently cathartic. Instead I make buttercream, Magnolia Bakery style. The important factor in buttercream is that it takes ages to make. Whisk the butter for ages. Add chocolate and whisk for ages. Add vanilla and whisk for ages. By the time you finish, wrist permanently fractured, what you have is a concoction so light and creamy you can hardly believe you started with a slab of butter a packet of icing sugar. The ingredients are transformed in the most extraordinarily alchemic process. And since it is a fine line between light and creamy, and marshmallow fluffy, you need to not take your eye off the ball. You have to concentrate.   which makes it the perfect baking solution to a sexism induced bad mood. I bake a chocolate sponge cake to put my buttercream on, and then just sit back and look at it. Not for eating, this one. It's for admiring. Baking as anger management.