Downtime With: Tanya Bush

When a copy of Will This Make You Happy: Stories & Recipes From A Year of Baking by Tanya Bush (out now) landed on my desk, I immediately wanted to curl up on the couch and spend a quiet afternoon with it. While the book contains recipes, it’s not your average cookbook. It’s a coming-of-age story, a “narrative cookbook,” a tender and honest memoir that unspools beautifully alongside watercolor illustrations that offer a slice-of-life, unkempt peek into one pastry chef’s experience baking, living, and growing in New York City. Also, the writing is very good.

It’s no surprise then that Tanya, a pastry chef by day, is no stranger to the literary life: she’s an avid reader and the co-founder of the literary food magazine, Cake Zine.¹ Her literary influences shine in this book (think Laurie Colwin, Ruth Reichl), which at times reads like poetry and makes for an immersive, calming reading experience. The recipes for treats like Hojicha Tiramisu and Neapolitan Pavlova almost feel like an added bonus. I asked Tanya a few questions about her downtime, her reading life, and, of course, pastries. Enjoy. —Alisha

P.S. We’re giving away one free copy of the book to a Downtime paid subscriber! To enter, please like this post and leave a comment with what you’re baking lately.

Tanya Bush’s 3 Good Things

1. A radio: it’s so lovely to have NPR murmuring in the background of my afternoons. I love my parasocial relationship with Brian Lehrer, and I love feeling connected to the rest of my city.

2. Omnilux Men’s red light mask: My husband says I look like a serial killer when I don it each night, but I relish the ritual before bed. It helps with fine lines and my winter-induced rosacea! They say the men’s mask penetrates deeper…

3. Getting a cat (or two–definitely two): Makes your house feel alive.

Downtime With: Tanya Bush

Talk to us about where you’re from and what you do?

I’m from New Jersey. Now, I live in Park Slope in Brooklyn where I bake and write. I’m the pastry chef at Little Egg, I co-founded the independent print magazine Cake Zine, and I’m the author of the narrative cookbook Will This Make You Happy.

How did you end up in the work that you do now?

It’s so funny looking back on moments that you can retrospectively imbue with significance, which at the time felt so arbitrary. I started baking five years ago, I was unemployed and unmoored. I turned to the kitchen because everyone around me was insisting that making banana bread or tending to a sourdough starter would soothe existential dread. This did not seem like a particularly effective cure to me, so I took to the internet to complain. But, it turned out that I liked making something. From there, I went on to work in professional kitchens and then began writing about my experience baking.

Can you walk us through a typical day for you?

If I’m at the restaurant, I’m up before the sun, I walk to work listening to Three Doors Down, then do the bake off. If it’s a production day, I pipe crullers, shape brioche, make a kaleidoscopic array of glazes and frostings and fillings. At some point I eat lunch, generally an omelette, then return home to work on edits for the magazine, or freelance writing pieces. Hopefully I’ll go to hot yoga and then sleep early before it begins again.