The Best Baklava

I was in a lousy mood when I walked into the Armenian bakery this morning. Last night was hectic and miserable, because my fiancee’s birthday party was interrupted by a trip to the ER. She is okay, but many frustrating things happened, and we were both feeling exhausted and abraded in the aftermath. I didn’t know if shawarma would help, but I thought it might, and good enough.

I ordered two beef shawarma rollups, and while I waited (this was clearly not McDonald’s!) I wandered over to look at the case of baklava and kunefeh, which were variously labelled for pistachio and cream and walnuts and hazelnut and other delicious-sounding things.

The man behind the counter came over. “Baklava?” he inquired.

“Yes, I’d like three of those pistachio roll-ups,” I said.

Instead of boxing my baklava, he studied me for a moment. “Have you had baklava before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Have you had our baklava?”

“…no?” It was my first time in the store.

“Here, try our baklava first.” He cut half a piece of baklava for me and pushed it across the counter.

Thanks to my low mood, I thought I was going to fail some kind of baklava appreciation test – “Leave our store at once, you do not deserve baklava!” – but then he broke into a huge grin. “You will love it,” he told me. “We make the best baklava.”

I took a bite. It was sticky with honey and incredibly flaky and crunched softly with the pecans. As I was chewing, he told me, “We make our own filo dough in house. That’s why it’s soft and not hard. Our baklava is so good.”

First off, his baklava was amazing. (Armenian Market and Bakery, Watertown, Massachusetts.)

But what really overwhelmed me was how happy he was to share his amazing baklava with me. He knew it was damned good, and he was proud of making something so good. I’d already placed my order, but he wanted to see my reaction.

I’m not a baklava connoisseur. I don’t know how his baklava ranks up in the Grand Order of Baklava. But I do know the world is a better place because his baklava exists.

If you put something good into the world, you deserve to be happy about it. You deserve to be proud of what you do.

And driving home, I thought: I’m really bad at that.

Many creators have trouble celebrating their work. Ann Friedman created a useful chart called the Disapproval Matrix, which breaks negative feedback down into rational vs. irrational and “know you” vs. “don’t know you”. The “irrational/know you” quadrant is labeled “frenemies”, and one of the entries is “yourself”.

I’m proud of my creative work – but I wish it were better, and my weasel brain thinks that “not better” means “bad”. Those opinions go to war whenever I think about my writing, let alone talk about it.

So I lean on hard evidence to show you that I’m competent, and I lean on other opinions to tell you my work is good. I rarely show my happiness, and I rarely show my pride, and there’s usually a disclaimer. And I never sound like the man who makes the best baklava.

But today, I’m going to be braver.

---

Hi! My name is Carolyn, and I make interactive fiction games.

A few favorites:

Beet the Devil is a vegetable-laden religious comedy. The puzzles are inspired, thematic, and ridiculous, and at least one is really satisfying (in the way That One Puzzle from Spider and Web is satisfying). It’s worth playing for the puppy alone.

18 Rooms to Home is experimental and artistic, but it’s also fun. If you enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series, you’ll probably enjoy this game. It’s serialized, so if you’re up to date on 18 Rooms, you can join a group of people talking about each release, just like everyone watching a TV show together. Also, you can see Room 15 on Google Maps, which pleases me greatly.

This Is A Real Thing That Happened is only about five minutes long, but in that “perfect short story” way, because it’s exactly what I wanted to make. It’s also one of the truest games I’ve ever written, both because it’s nonfiction and because of its metafictional take on “what is a game?”

I also write a twice-weekly game dev blog at Sibyl Moon, which fills a key niche at the intersection of indie game dev and interactive fiction. My writing is honest, clear, and entertaining, influenced by a unique perspective ranging from AAA producer to solo IF author.

My games are amazing, and my blog is important. I’m glad that I can do this creative work, and I’m proud of my contributions to the medium, and I’m joyous about sharing both with you.

---

That’s my “best baklava” – an explanation of what I do and how it’s good, without any disclaimers or apologies.

What’s yours?

 

---

My best baklava is supported by Patreon subscribers. Please support my baklava.