Let Them Eat Cake

Every family, I think, has recipes that only one or two members make. I'm not sure why, and I don't know how the people get picked to be the annointed cookers...I imagine there are secret handshakes and strange passwords involved. Then again, maybe not.

In Jason's family, the recipe is for a cake. It's really a simple cake...yellow cake with vanilla buttercream icing with melted chocolate poured on top. Jason's Grandmother called it a drip-dry cake. I'm not really sure if it was her invention or not, but we'll just give her the credit.

I've been around Jason's family for 22 years, and let me tell you, in those early years, having a drip-dry cake at a family dinner was an event. It didn't matter how many desserts were on the table, just about everyone asked for a piece of that cake first.

As Gram got older, she stopped baking. The cake wasn't made often after that. Then, one of Jason's Aunts moved back into town, and she made the cakes for every occasion. We were drowning in drip-drys (say that five times fast). And then, like Gram, she stopped baking. Alzheimer's stole her from us, bit by bit.

Last week, I was asked (for the first time ever) to make a drip-dry cake by Jason's mother. I was freaking out. Fah-REAKING. OUT. Not because I didn't think I could do it; it is a simple cake, after all. No, I was competing against ghosts and memories, and that's never fun.

So, I turned to my old friend with alllllll the answers. Google. There was no way I was taking a shortcut and using a boxed mix. So I searched...and searched...and searched for a recipe for plain yellow cake and kick-ass buttercream icing. (Did I ever mention how competitive I am? Yeah.. I am. If I was being thrown under the bus by making this cake, I wasn't going down without a fight.)

Recipes and ingredients in hand, I broke the cardinal rule of cooking: NEVER, EVER make a new recipe for the first time for an event. I mixed up the batter, and it was awesome. (Yes, I eat raw cake batter...and raw cookie dough. It hasn't killed me yet.) I poured my perfect batter into my cake pans, and I popped them in the oven.

After about 10 minutes, the house was filled with the smell of cake, which I thought was odd, since the cake had to cook 30 minutes. At about 15 minutes in, I smelled BURNT cake. ACK! So, I open the oven, and my perfect cake batter is spilling out of my cake pans. So, I do what any normal person would do. I closed the oven door and hoped for the best. After 30 minutes, the timer goes off. I open the oven door, and I see two perfectly cooked cakes...and an oven full of black smoke.

I let the cakes cool, thinking that just maybe they would taste ok. I opened all the windows and turned on the fans to clear out the kitchen of smoke (I was also more than a bit alarmed that all that smoke did NOT set off my smoke detectors). I broke off a piece of the cake to taste it, and it seemed ok. I wrapped up the cakes, and let them sit over night.

The next morning, the cakes still looked perfect under the wrappers. I peeled back the Saran wrap, and I was hit by the smell of smoke. DAMN! OK, maybe I was over-reacting. I asked one of my boy children (mistake #1) if he smelled smoke. Nope. Mistake #2: I believed him. I frosted the cake, and the more I pressed down on the cake applying icing, the more smoke I smelled. DOUBLE DAMN!

I kept frosting hoping I was just being hyper-sensitive (it's been known to happen). Nope...even frosted, I could smell smoke. Alrighty then. There was no way I could serve that. So, I made another one (after I scraped out the oven, of course).

I used bigger pans...SQUARE pans, not the normally used round pan. Again, the batter was perfect. I pulled the cooked cake out of the oven and smelled it. It smelled like....cake. Oh, thank gawd. First hurdle cleared.

At this point, I was absolutely convinced that something would happen, and my frosting would not be as good as the previous day's version. I measured, mixed and tasted. It was totally kick-ass. In fact, it was better than the previous batch. (How, I have no clue. I took it as a gift from the baking gods after my disasters the day before.)

It turned out great. I rocked it. Yup, I did. All the stress, all the smoke, all the butter...it was all worth it.

Oh, and if you tackle a family recipe, I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend reading your recipe 4 or 5 times before you start cooking. Otherwise, you may read "8 inch square pan OR 9 inch round pan" as "8 inch round pan."

Just sayin'.

All the world's a stage

Dirty secret #243: I am a chicken. I mean, I am a big ol' Foghorn Leghorn (I know, he's a rooster, but I can't think of any huge girl chickens) sized chicken. I loathe public speaking. Even in school, doing speeches or reports in front of the class made me break out in hives.

Acting, therefore, is not in my repertoire. I think I'd pass out cold if I had to remember lines and spew them out on command in front of a packed house. In high school, I had to memorize the gravedigger's scene in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet. Even though I had one of my dearest friends as the other gravedigger, and my English class had maybe 12 kids in it, you would have thought I was standing on stage at the Globe Theater in front of old Bill himself. I was freaking out. I don't know how I made it through to the end, but I did.

Luckily, this is another one of my neuroses that I have managed NOT to pass along to my children. As everyone within earshot of me knows, I have a musical brood. They get up on stage and sing and play various instruments....in front of people. Lots and lots of people. Strangers! it's mind boggling to me.

I suppose it's rather ironic that I, the Queen of never trying anything new, encourage my children to try all sorts of new things. It's definitely not my trying to relive my misspent youth through them (see paragraph one above). I never had any desire to be in the spotlight....especially knowing if the spotlight did shine on me, I'd probably hurl...in epic proportions.

I am always anxious when my kids try something new. I try not to let them see it, but trust me, it's bubbling beneath the surface. There have been tons of musical auditions...more than a handful of rejections...and they keep going. It's their passion.

When Russell told me he was trying out for the school play, I was shocked...and worried...and so, so, so excited for him. I couldn't believe he wanted to subject himself to that sort of scrutiny. He auditioned...and made it past the first round of cuts...and then had to wait to find out if he made the final cut. His text to me this morning was only three small words, "I MADE IT!," but I could picture the look on his face, and I knew the unadulterated sense of joy he was feeling.

So, I'll be there, in the audience watching him try something new...and hoping I don't embarrass him by fainting...or barfing...or both.

Come Sail Away

I love being on my boat. It's not big, it's not fancy, but it's ours, and we don't have a boat payment. We can house it in the garage (in fact, when we were having the garage built, Jason had it oversized for the very intention of storing the boat). Another plus? It has no sails.

While I love to wtach sailboats, you put me on one, and I become Regan from "The Exorcist." My head spins around, and I spew split pea soup vomit. Seriously. It's not pretty. I haven't been on a sailboat since I was a teenager...and I have no plans on changing that any time soon.

Plus, I like to go FAST. It pains me enough that a trip that would take 15 minutes in the car takes 45 minutes by boat. Good lord, I'd be on a sailboat all flippin' day and not even reach my destination. I realize that for some people, that is part of the charm of sailing. I don't have the patience for that nonsense.

OK, and there's another reason...with a motor boat, you gas up and go. There's no hoisting sails,
lowering sails, tacking this way or that. You just drive. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I am allll about taking the easy way out when it comes to my leisure activities. If it's not fun, why do it?

Jason keeps making noises about wanting a sailboat and learning how to sail. I told him to go for it. I'll wave to him as I zoom by in my motor boat.

Besides, if we had a sailboat, the kids couldn't tube behind it...and if they couldn't tube, they couldn't wipeout...and if they couldn't wipeout, I'd have no pictures of said wipeouts to amuse me. Where's the fun in that?