“Cookies, Regrets and Time Travel”

The first spring out of university, I found myself unemployed and in arrears with so many of those TV series that I decided I would do before starting a new one. So, wandering around the web looking for advice, I came across what would become the ultimate push to look for a job: Being Erica.

It might sound negative, like “it was so disgusting that I preferred to go and lock myself 8 hours in an office”, no, absolutely. On the contrary. Erica is a somewhat unsuccessful girl, with a big dream: to become a writer who in the meantime tries to make ends meet by being an editor.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Her life is completely upset when the whole collapse of her sentimental, economic and working life she decides to end it but before she can really try the insane gesture she meets an elusive therapist, this doctor Tom who proposes to retrace her life to remedy at least to some of the biggest and most serious regrets that brought her up to that fateful tragic moment….

I swear, it looks very familiar indeed. Apart from time travel.

So, armed with grandma’s biscuits * (those with butter in the blue box that promptly turned out to hide needle and thread instead of those delights) and strictly English tea with a squeeze of lemon, I placed myself in front of the pc starting the adventure with this series Canadian TV middle between the comic and the surreal, a bit drama a bit soap.

If you are in a phase of life halfway between youth and adulthood, this is definitely the series for you. But even if you are simply faced with some important decision, if you are undecided, displeased, if you have one of those moments of loss that you believe will never pass.

Erica is all of us. Men and women constantly unraveling between being and non-being. Between the I would like but I cannot. Or I could but I don’t want to.

A very special TV series, made up of small but fundamental life lessons in each episode. Love, family, work, friendship… Every relevant aspect of life is perfectly illustrated in an often-ironic key. Linked to all the disasters in the life of this aspiring editor, our troubles will seem…

… fine, no, they persist to be ours and therefore we will still give them more importance than yours, but together with you, Dr. Tom and the other characters we will also learn that unexpected events happen to everyone, misfortunes are part of life, regrets go addressed. And that the central thing is how you choose to move forward even with these heavy bags on your shoulders.

In the middle of difficulties, possibilities arise: this is the message of “Being Erica”.

And I can only thank her for moving me inside her making me return to the office and taking me back to the path of writing, and above all for keeping me company in those boring spring afternoons.

* GRANDMA’S COOKIES

(the recipe is from my mom, Mena)

INGREDIENTS (approx. 50 biscuits)

-100 g. of sugar
-1 egg
-250 g. flour 00
-225 g. of butter
– ½ vanilla bean
– ½ level teaspoon of baking soda
– Salt to taste.
– granulated sugar and brown sugar to decorate

Method

Whip the butter with the sugar for a few minutes, then add the egg, vanilla seeds extracted from ½ berry, a pinch of salt, baking soda and sifted flour. We mix everything with a whisk, until you get a smooth dough. Put the dough in the fridge, wrapped in cling film for 1 hour. Then we turn on the oven at 170 °. Once the dough is ready, divide it into 4 parts and start with the first. We spread on the floured work surface, with a thickness of approx. 5 mm. We obtain the desired shapes and place them on the pan covered with baking paper. Once the dough is finished, take another part and so on.

We sprinkle the forms with granulated sugar or cane and bake at 170 ° for approx. 12 minutes. These cookies must be quite clear.

We wait for them to cool before transplanting them into a tin box in which they can be kept for about 2/3 months.