"On Instagram, under the handle @will.this.make.me.happy, she posted a photo of a craggy yellow pastry that fit perfectly in her palm. "No. Buttermilk scones with lemon zest do not alleviate anxiety," she captioned it. On December 4th, she posted again, declaring, beneath an image of a sugar-ringed cookie perched between her thumb and forefinger, "No. Pecan shortbread did not help me reconcile my massive ego with my meager sense of self.""
"And yet, as she details in her forthcoming cookbook, "Will This Make You Happy: Stories & Recipes from a Year of Baking," her commitment to baking, and to recording what she produced and ate, ultimately changed her life. "I was twenty-three, depressed, unemployed, and adrift. I just wanted to make something," she writes. "Sometimes a single year can mark a sudden and definitive shift. In this one, I decided to become a baker.""
Spending a day in someone's kitchen can reveal their relationships to time, money, pleasure, and place. On November 21, 2020, Tanya Bush in Brooklyn began posting photos of baked goods to Instagram under @will.this.make.me.happy, captioning each with deadpan denials that sweets eased her anxiety or solved deeper tensions. Baking became a daily practice during depression and unemployment; baking, tasting, and recording offered structure and joy. She moved from her home kitchen to an internship in Italy while navigating relationships called The Boyfriend and The Crush. Baking ultimately became a defining pivot toward a professional life as a baker.
Read at The New Yorker
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