I need to take a few minutes for my semi-annual Skáld appreciation blog post. Except this time, it’s a little more sentimental.

After I picked up my weekly cardamom bun at the farmers’ market this morning, I reflected on how it has impacted my life this past year. “Ummm…a cardamom bun…impacted your life?” you might be thinking. Well, yes, it has. I’ll tell you why.

It all started last August, when I moved and lost my job on a Zoom call five days later. Things didn’t seem like they could get any worse, and then, a month later, I lost someone who meant the world to me. I was shattered, but I didn’t have time to fall apart: I was too busy cobbling together contract work to try to pay my rent and bills and applying for new full-time jobs to try to recoup some of what I’d lost.

Still, there was a stretch during the holidays before I started a new, full-time job when I hit rock bottom. I wasn’t working yet, so I spent my days in bed, crying, or listening to sad music while sobbing on the bathroom floor. At one point, I decided to make sticky toffee pudding for Christmas to honor my annual tradition of making a holiday dessert. I started the caramel sauce, but it was taking forever, so I turned up the heat. It exploded and shattered part of the surface of my glass top stove.

Although this period of my life is understandably blurry to me now, I remember one bright spot: Realizing that Skáld was opening a brick-and-mortar location. Skáld is a Scandinavian-style bakery in town that started at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, which is where I first found them. I’d been looking for a good cardamom bun in St. Louis, so I was excited to find it at Skáld last spring. I started buying one every weekend at the market.

Then, the market closed for the winter. I was disappointed to lose my weekly tradition, but again, I was a bit distracted after moving, losing my job, and having my heart thrown into a dumpster fire. I didn’t forget about the bun, but I considered it gone with the wind, kind of like my career and financial stability.

Then, I saw an announcement on social media for Skáld’s new brick-and-mortar bakery. It was like seeing a lighthouse through the storm. Despite not being excited about anything, I found myself eagerly awaiting their opening weekend announcement on social media. As soon as online ordering opened, I placed an order.

“You were the first person to order,” ones of the owners, Kyle, said to me when I came on the first cold Saturday morning to pick up my bun and bread. He said it in an excited way, which made me feel a little excited. It had been a long, long time since I was the first at anything, and in a way, I was proud of myself. I knew what I wanted, and I got it before anyone else.

For the next few months, I started going to Skáld almost every Saturday morning. I’d set an alarm as early as I could tolerate, force myself out of bed in my cold apartment, layer on clothes and a coat and boots, and go downstairs to drive 15 minutes to the bakery.

I really wanted the bun, but sometimes, getting up and dressed and driving over to the bakery seemed beyond my capabilities. “Is it really worth it?” I asked myself on more than one occasion. It seemed like a better alternative would be laying in my bed, crying, and asking AI different versions of the same question about how my life fell apart. However, the answer to my question about going to Skáld was always, “yes,” because I’d remember what happened after I picked up the bun.

I’d come home, feeling slightly better because I talked to the bakery owners and smelled their bakery, which is one of my favorite smells: There’s something about dough and sugar that gets me every time. I’d make myself a pot of hot coffee, put the bun on my favorite plate, and eat it slowly, savoring each bite between sips of coffee. It melted in my mouth, and it never failed me. The cardamom bun got me up, out, and through.

Flash forward to today, at the beginning of June. I’m still depressed, but not quite as shattered as I was months ago. I’ve started to visit Skáld again at the farmers’ market, where they’re set up on Saturday mornings for the season. I stand in line, surrounded by people excitedly chatting about what’s on the table and sometimes holding adorable dogs on leashes. I’m alone, but that’s okay—I’m happy for these low-stakes interactions with a world I’ve barely started to trust again.

When it’s my turn to order, I make a game-time decision. I usually add a cookie or pastry like a Kouign-amann, or if I really want to throw them for a loop, I add a savory pastry to the mix. But without fail, I get the cardamom bun.

I take it home, unpack my groceries, and put the bun on one of my nicest plates. I make a pot of coffee and choose my favorite mug to pour some into. I sit at my counter and let the sun hit me through the window. I don’t feel great, but I feel better than I have in months. I take a bite and silently praise the cardamom bun that saved me.