Olivia Potts was overwhelmed by grief when her mother died unexpectedly at the age of 54: “My mother was my best friend. After she died, I felt so fucking lonely.” A 25-year-old barrister, Potts had only just passed her bar exams and was working at a criminal law chambers in London, and hoping to be offered tenancy. Within days of her mother’s death, “Miss Potts of Counsel” was back in court, dressed in horse-hair wig and black gown. But by burying her pain it became the foundation of her identity, transforming her into “Grief Girl” and changing the course of her life.
Her mother, father and maternal grandfather were all solicitors: “law is in my blood”. Potts had worked hard and loved being able to say she was a barrister: “I looked great in a wig and gown”. But after the death of “my beautiful, brilliant, infuriating, mad mother”, she became anxious and stressed by her work: “I was falling apart”. Her application for tenancy at the chambers was accepted (“This was all I’d wanted”), but she had to leave.
Although her mother made the best roast dinners in the world (“her Yorkshire puddings, as befits a Yorkshire woman, were second to none”), baking was unheard of in the Potts household. Surprisingly then, it was in cooking that Potts found solace as her life crumbled around her. In particular, she loved baking, “where temperatures mattered and ingredients needed to be precisely weighed”. She swapped the crown court for cooking school, enrolling on the patisserie diploma course at Le Cordon Bleu, in central London. Why patisserie? Because puddings are joyous and indulgent, and she needed a serious serving of both joy and indulgence in her life. She needed macarons in every colour of the rainbow, “complex and smoky” creme caramels, raspberry and lavender eclairs, cakes smothered in buttercream that was “richer than Rockefeller and less subtle than Liberace in its sweetness”, and petits fours filled with calamansi gel and Szechuan pepper crémeux. If you’re going to quit a career for cake you might as well do it in style.
Her gamble paid off. After nine months she passed the gruelling practical exams at Le Cordon Bleu with flying colours: “It might have been a half-baked idea, but it was also a good one.” Of course she still misses her mother desperately but grief has taught her much about herself: “I am a better person for her death”.This is a heart-warming book about death and new beginnings that will delight cake lovers; it manages to be moving, funny and mouth-watering in equal measure – a difficult literary confection to master.
• A Half Baked Idea: How Grief, Love and Cake Took Me from the Courtroom to Le Cordon Bleu is published by Fig Tree (RRP £14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
