Bernadette Marty
and the Booze Infused Kitchen

One fateful Fourth of July several summers ago, I was wandering around the south side of St. Louis, where my group of pals led me to a backyard bonfire. Loud music was playing as firecrackers went off in the street. The party was at a stranger’s house at a friend of a friend’s Airbnb, and I knew almost nobody there. Usually, I do alright at parties, but when I am too far down the Dionysian path, I begin overthinking and oftentimes, I become awkward. Naturally, when this happened, I sat down by the fire to relax.

And that’s when I met Bernadette!

To everyone who meets her, Bernadette is a hilarious, charming and delightful presence, whose energy and smile are both contagious. That night, we got to talking about life and how both of us knew nobody there. Thus, a friendship was born!

Long after leaving St. Louis, I have stayed connected with Bernadette over social media. She’s always an advocate for my art, and in turn, I’ve enjoyed watching her posts of adorably-decorated delicacies. I have witnessed her kitchen and life become a hub of community engagement: a place for trying new things, sharing laughter, and for making magic happen.

Bernadette runs a brillaint blog called the Booze Infused Kitchen. With articles titled, “How to Bake Cookies in a Crappy Apartment’s Electric Oven or How to live like an Artist: The Recipe,” and equally silly, “Drip Cake: What Could Go Wrong ?,” she explains the steps of her crafty cakes, gives tips and tricks, and adds fun captions to boot. For a Lemon-Blueberry Cake [pictured 1st in the gallery below], she wrote, “Slap a filter on your picture because you’re an artist, dammit. Act like one.” HELLO???

With posts going back to 2015, it’s easy to see her growth and her persistence to the craft. Follow the link to check out those majestic works of edible art!

Whenever someone I know is just out there Doing Awesome Stuff, I feel compelled to ask some questions about creativity and philosophy, as inspiration for you and I both. Because we’re all artists of some kind, and we should be celebrating our differences, and relishing in the indomitable human spirit, and all that jazz. So I asked Bernadette. And of course, like in all these interviews, I have discovered what my intuition told me all along: that Bernadette is a multifaceted creative genius. To only speak to one of her talents would be doing this post an injustice! Songwriter, instrumentalist, writer, artist, mixologist, pastry chef, cake decorator, Halloween enthusiast makeup artist and costumer… can you believe she studied Computer Science?

It goes without saying, the creative spirit is in our blood. Sometimes, no matter how much we try to nurture it out of ourselves, we always circle back to that inner child.

“Creativity was first a necessity for me,” Bernadette told me. “As a kid, growing up 6th of 8, I didn’t have a lot of toys. So I used things that were lying around our house and grandmother's farm to create my doll houses, or just create alternate realities for myself.” She went on to explain how, growing up, money and attention were scarce, so she didn’t know how to ask for art supplies or how to shine in the way she needed. Driven by a deep desire to create, she made a concentrated effort to play anyway.

A family friend named Mildred often provided their birthday cakes growing up, and something clicked: With so many siblings, Bernadette realized, “Everyone needed to eat and everyone has a birthday! And we had butter, sugar, and eggs in the house most of the time!” Thus, her love of baking was born. Part of the reason she bakes is to keep Mildred’s generosity and love alive. But it’s grown from that, too, and has become something healing.

“The more special a birthday I make for someone, the more I heal the little girl in me
who didn’t have super special birthdays or holidays,” she said,
and dutifully gave her inner child a hug (and you should, too!).

When I asked her for who inspires her the most, she told me of her love of Austin Kleon and his book, Steal Like An Artist, whose books invited her to take ideas from multiple places and mash them together to make something new. New music is also paramount to her creative practices, saying, “Songwriters have long been my favorite poets. Josiah and the Bonnevilles, Goth Babe, King Lazy Eye, Chappell Roan and the Dreamers come to mind.” Thanks for the playlist tips, B, I’ll definitely check these out.

She also told me something about her baking that I deeply resonated with, and maybe you will as well. Let me just quote her here:

“I bake a little out of spite too. In my 20’s I had a controlling boyfriend who never valued what I baked, or me in general.” (Didn’t we all, Bernadette? Didn’t. We. All.) “He thought anyone could do it and I’d never make money at it, so what was the point?” (Are you sure we don’t have the same ex-boyfriend?) She went on to talk about her Flamingo cakes [3rd in gallery], saying, “I bake over the top, unique flavor combinations and elaborate cakes as a ‘fuck you’ to him. To prove that in fact, I can do something no one else can or has done.” Hell yeah! Stick it to the man — and then throw the whole man away while you’re at it.

Nobody deserves to be treated like they don’t have any value in their relationships, but sometimes the harshest lessons take us toward the greatest blessings in life. Your creativity is a gift, and most of all, it is healing in ways I’m not sure any of us truly understand. Even spite heals, because suddenly, you let go of fear and DO IT! Do it scared! Do it for fun, and best of all, do it for yourself, and your family and your friends — because you deserve to experience joy as you work through the pain. And the world needs more people who are living in their joy.

Beyond the bakery, Bernadette recently invited me to the virtual Threshold Writers’ Workshop with Prison Performing Arts in St. Louis. It’s been the most amazing and insightful and wonderful thing that I desperately needed in my life. I wish I knew how to express my gratitude for her thinking of me, sharing it with me, and being right there with me every week encouraging and cheering on everyone there with her positivity and support.

But it wasn’t until someone else in the group mentioned it that I learned Bernadette was a songwriter. I asked her to share some lyrics with me, if she wouldn’t mind. Always modest, she told me that being a songwriter doesn’t mean she has perfect pitch or rhythm. To her, it means writing heartfelt lyrics and expressing the highs and lows of life through the art. She shared with me a song you’d 100% expect to sing along to on a Friday night before going out to the bars, but her juxtaposition of a melancholy melody with the catchy lyrics takes her music to a world all its own. And best of all, it makes you laugh! The first stanza is:

“When I’m drinkin’ bourbon, it makes me feel brave —
I could climb that building, I could punch you in the face!”

The song also goes on to say, “I’ll forget how fucked up the world has become, come to think of it, I’ll take a single shot of rum.” I think all of us can relate to that, especially the last few years. Bernadette’s songwriting, like her cake baking, reminds me that life can have light alongside the darkness, too.

I am often jealous of musically talented people, and Bernadette immediately encouraged me to pick up the guitar that’s been collecting dust in my basement. She told me that if we can handle menstrual cramps, we can handle sore fingertips from guitar strings — and that got me playing in no time. Come on, ladies, leave all the guitar playing to the men? I don’t think so.

Do take care of yourself, though. Bernadette’s determination to learn led to injuries resulting in two surgeries. But nevertheless, she persisted. “When I first started, I picked a song I wanted to learn,” Bernadette said. “When I failed at recreating it perfectly, it became my song.” Like I always say, art doesn’t have to be “good,” it just has to be YOURS! She went on to give a gentle reminder we all need sometimes: “Just sing from your heart — it helps!”

At the end of the day, how does Bernadette keep going? Why not give up, like that icky ex-boyfriend said? She told me, “The way that I know that I am an artist is that I can’t stop. When I’d stop baking (due to dieting… or not wanting to show my love with diabetes fodder… or because I didn’t want to do the sinks and sinks of dishes) I’d get so damn sad. DEPRESSION. When I’d break down and start making something, and I’d lose myself in the act and I’d feel my self esteem rising.” Creativity can truly be a powerful act of self-love!

Music and baking, writing and art, Bernadette is a living, breathing example of a bohemian creative philosophy. I am so happy we stayed connected these last few years and I can’t wait to see what she does next!

Please, do yourself a favor and follow Bernadette’s journey as she makes both life and art into a scrumptious little treat. She is always sharing on her blog, which, again, is The Booze Infused Kitchen — and on social media. You can follow her at @bearmarty on TikTok, and for more, her handle is @betty_leadbelly on Instagram.

Thank you, Bernadette for sharing your heART with me, and with all of us! Keep going!