Lessons in life, baking

Brookings woman writes ‘recimoir’

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BROOKINGS – The title “Uncollapsible Cakes” probably makes you think of baking cakes and you’d be right, but Charmaine Houck’s new book is more than that.

“Uncollapsible Cakes” started with her baking and grew into what she calls a “recimoir,” a cross between a cookbook and a memoir.

“I sort of made up the word. It’s not a real word,” Houck said with a laugh, “but it fit what I was doing because it is part recipe book, part memoir. So it was fitting to just come up with its own name, rather than find a category to put it in.

“I love to cook and I love to bake,” she said. “I’ve always written and finally a friend said you should just write a book.”

The title can be taken two ways: as a baking guide and as a play on words. Houck’s nickname is “Cakes,” and mixed in with the recipes are stories from her own life on how to be uncollapsible.

Baking carries special memories from her childhood and also got her through some tough times. Now, she uses her creations to help inspire and lift up others.

“Uncollapsible Cakes” was self-published with Balboa Press and is available on balboapress.com and amazon.com in paperback. She plans to get an e-book out soon.

Houck will host a book release and signing party from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Carrot Seed Kitchen Co. There are 50 VIP tickets available for $20 each on eventbrite.com. Go to South Dakota, then Sioux Falls, then Uncollapsible Cakes Release Party.

A VIP ticket will get you a book, personalized signature, and “some extra swag” like bookmarks, vinyl stickers and a cupcake.

From bad to good

A painful event – her parents’ divorce and the subsequent move to North Dakota to be close to her mom’s mother – was the impetus for Houck’s love affair with the oven.

Her grandmother was known for her apple pie, much to Houck’s amusement.

“I still don’t ever remember her having a recipe for it, so I can only assume now as an adult that it was never the same twice, but darn it, it won awards all the time,” she said with a smile.

Her grandma taught her to be fearless in the kitchen.

“(I learned) to bake without measuring cups and (with) recipes that were in her mind; words like ‘until it looks good’ and ‘until the bubbles are big enough,’” Houck recalled laughing.  

“Watching her bake pie … I fell in love with baking,” she said.

Houck bakes a lot and gives it away, much to the annoyance of her husband, Chris, and three kids, who ask her to save some for them.

She’s teaching her sons and daughter to give back: they ran a cupcake cart one summer a few years ago, and all the proceeds went to a childhood cancer research foundation.

She’s drawn to giving back and to baking.

“One, baking speaks to me because I do have a bit of a sweet tooth; but secondly, I just really enjoy … maybe I should say I enjoy playing. Once you get a recipe the way you like it, from there you can start adding or subtracting items to taste,” Houck said.

The other thing that speaks to her is writing. 

“I’ve always been a writer. I work at Midwest Meetings. I am the editor and lead writer,” Houck said. 

Writing “Uncollapsible Cakes” gave her the opportunity to combine the two.

Inspiration

Houck’s teammates on the Midwest Maidens Roller Derby team nicknamed her “Cakes” for her baking skill and others noticed, too.

“A lot of people would ask me ‘How do you get your cakes so moist? How do you get it to rise like that?’ And so I came up with those tips,” Houck said. “And then I decided when I was gonna make the book partly a memoir, I figured out how to make each section viable to life.”

She has information on how to tell if baking powder is past its prime, along with a recipe, “but then that section is dealing with your past. For the second chapter, too much leavening, that’s dealing with your pride, or raising yourself up too high,” she said.

Choosing stories from her own life was a challenge. 

She’s kept a journal for most of her life so she was able to refer back to it, but it took a while to pick out which ones she’d tell.

“That was because some are very personal and I didn’t want to upset anyone in my family or in my past or make anyone come out in a bad light,” Houck said.

That’s one of reasons the book took about three years, even though it’s less than 100 pages. Once she wrote it and re-read it, she sat on it, questioning herself if it was good enough.

“You go through a whole cycle and then you kind of have to re-fall in love with it,” she said.

She wants her readers to learn, but enjoy and be able to apply it to their lives.

“I want it to be able to be read across the board: a teenager could pick it up and read it or someone who’s 75 years old could pick it up and read it and not be offended – I hope,” she said.

“I’m going for laughs and just the personal insight. If I can make one person smile or one person feel a little bit more like they have it together, compared to me at certain times in my life, then I’m doing my duty as a writer,” Houck said.

“I tell stories from my youth. I talk about life lessons after my divorce. I talk about finding my first gray hair. And I also talk about the little things that set me off, like setting up a tent with my husband. We call my episodes ‘tent-trums,’” Houck said. The section also includes how she decided to deal with it for the sake of her marriage.

“My husband Chris has been absolutely supportive of all of my wild and crazy ideas,” Houck said. “He’s been supportive of my career and my book writing and he’s mentioned in there. He did have the first read to OK anything I said about our relationship. He is a gem.”

Not all the stories are light-hearted.

“There’s a story that talks about my uncollapsible moment, when I decided to change my life,” Houck said, adding the book is “more of a survival story with a sweet ending.”

The future

Since she’s always thinking about how she can help, she created T-shirts that tie into the book. Proceeds will benefit Dress for Succss in Sioux Falls.

And Houck plans more ‘recimoirs.’

She has more stories to tell and lots more recipe tips to impart.

“I am working on the second one now, second and third, actually,” Houck said.

“It’ll be the same format as this, so it will be recipes and stories again,” she said, adding one will be sauces and one will be hot dishes. “There’s nothing like a good hot dish,” she added.

“I’m not here to become a millionaire off it. I’m just sharing stories and try to share my adventurous and fun-loving spirit with others,” Houck said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.

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