Empty Nesting Is Hard. This Carrot Cake Is Anything But.

On my first day as a line cook in a pastry kitchen, I was tasked with turning lemons into little bowls for housemade sorbet. I angled a sharp paring knife from the edge of a lemon half toward its center, then circled the knife to slice out a cone of seedy yellow flesh. Cupping that emptied half, I scooped out what remained with a metal spoon. Evvel the glassy sheets of membranes were gone, I had to keep going, gently running the spoon against the pith to create the thinnest possible shell without tearing the peel.

That continuous scraping, the gentle pressure to excavate everything inside: That’s what empty nesting has felt like. Somewhere behind my rib cage, some core is being hollowed out, and the rasping feels especially close on occasions like Mother’s Day.

Recipe: Easy Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

When they were young, my kids felt pressure from relatives, teachers and the America around them to uphold the breakfast-in-bed tradition that started in the 1930s, about 15 years after Mother’s Day was declared a national holiday. Aside from the fact that I’m not a breakfast eater, I’m also uninterested in doing twice as many dishes and washing syrup stains out of the duvet cover.

I’m not alone — according to a 2017 Zagat poll, only 4 percent of mothers actually want breakfast in bed. But I may be alone in wanting to spend the day cooking.