Colleague says âporch piecesâ helped fill void Dr. Amy Malkus says when the COVID-19 pandemic hit she decided to revert to her comfort zone and do something she has always enjoyed doing. âI have been baking since I was three years old and I come from a long line of women who thought that food cures everything,â she said. âSo I decided to bake my way out of the stress.â Malkus is a faculty member in the Clemmer College at East Tennessee State University and was looking for ways to cheer up her students after classes were moved to all-remote learning. In the beginning she would post funny pictures of her cats, and later she added photos of the cakes she had baked.