CAKE STANDARDS

I’ve been enjoying looking in on several baking sites, and am amazed at the beautiful and complicated creations on some, the colorful swoops and swags and layers tottery-tall like Dr. Seuss’ sweetest dreams. I love seeing the work of people’s hands, and admire all the different aspects of the work and the imagination and skill of the bakers. I even love a site called “Cake Wrecks,” and am doubly amazed at the awful and funny and sadly optimistic pieces of other folks’ baking craft.

I dropped the top of a wedding cake once, flipped upside down in the trunk of the clean-sheet-lined car, and had to run back in and get out all the icing and tips and bags and refurbish the luckily-unbroken tier. And once as I turned a corner in the long delivery wagon, I heard an ominous thump from the back. A BIG can of pineapple juice intended for the punch had jumped from the top of the bag with its fellows, and landed neatly between Tier 2 and Tier 3, all set out separately for the delivery, and not a scratch or dent on either one. The can was rolling gently back and forth, bumping the cakeboards, never touching the cakes, but it could have had the devastating effect of a Richter 5 on all those tender layers.

And I cannot imagine presenting anything less than a well-made cake to any client.

Way back when I was first getting started in my home kitchen, I had taken an order for one birthday cake, decorated as a baseball diamond. Normally, I did not take orders during the week, as I had another full time job as well. But I was friends with the lady who asked, and liked the little boy who was celebrating his birthday.

But one birthday cake can involve as much mess and confusion and sifting and frosting as would a dozen, especially in a home kitchen with the children doing homework in the breakfast area and helping cook supper, besides. Not to mention the neighbor's child, a forlorn young girl who magically appeared at the door at suppertime, about three days a week.

So the layers were baked, the frosting made, the supper cooked and eaten, and the homework finished. The four teenagers settled at the table for a rousing game of Yahtzee while the frosting and decorating were going on. In order to clean the LOOONNNG kitchen counter properly, and to guard the safety of the finished cake from flying mists of antibacterial sprays, and since the table was occupied, the finished cake was removed to the living room, to the safety of the coffee table.

Had there been a family dog, never would I have put the cake in such a vulnerable spot. Since there was just the one old fat-as-mud ladycat, which seldom emerged from beneath the bed to blink warily in the daylight, and since cats are known for hating sugar, anyway, no thought was given to any danger from that quarter.

During the final counterwipe, a fresh pot of decaf brewing and an easy chair and a nice cozy mystery for resting mind and body in the offing, there was heard in the house an odd sound. Even over the raucous cheers and jeers of the four Yahtzee-heads, came the sounds of "smick-smick-smick" from the living room. All peeked in to see the cat, roused from her hibernation and magically levitated onto the coffeetable, energetically licking second base clean off the field. And a couple of the outfielders hadn't fared too well either, like they'd taken a frantic slide and buried face-deep in mud.

Wide, wary eyes turned toward me. "You ARE going to scrape that off and fix it, aren't you?" in chorus, as if rehearsed.

"No, I am NOT!!" was the emphatic answer, as rattling of cupboards, melting of butter, sifting of flour began afresh at 9 p.m. The table of players erupted in joyous yells, as they scrambled for plates, forks, the jug of cold milk. They incised that yukky section away as skillfully as a surgeon cutting a wart, and shared out great soft slices of the cake---and right at bedtime.

Second Cake was baked, cooled, frosted and decorated, finished about 1 a.m., with a thorough sanitizing cycle in the dishwasher for all the little plastic nine.

My children have told me for years how much they appreciated that I did start over, not just for the unexpected snack, of course, but that I had standards far above foisting damaged goods onto trusting clients. And the kids are the reason that I spent so much time on other people’s parties, sweeping up the midnight rice from weddings not my own.

GRANDTORTOISE

Our dear Grandtortoise was a handsome fellow, with a big shiny taller-than-a-turtle shell, all squared off with lovely markings in all shades from brown to rust to tan and olive, like a beautiful enameled Japanese box. Sheldon was a tiny baby the size of a silver dollar when our daughter got him, and when they came to live here, he would cover a dinner-plate.

He lived in the utility room downstairs most of the time, settling flat on the floor with his face poked near the flame of the water heater. He’d come when I called, “C’mon, Dolling!” and would saunter out, his tall shell not quite clearing the curtain, making an entrance from the drooping folds. He’d make his way to his little flat plate and settle in to consume whatever green things I’d ground in his little processor---broccoli, grapes, apple, spinach---he ate them all. And a scoop of still-warm rice---he’d dive in with jaws open, and not come up for air til the last soft grain was gone.

Then, he’d get a drink from his bowl, and walk the LONG walk out of the kitchen, through the dining area, past the breakfast table, on past the bathroom and into our bedroom door, where he’d make his way to the far side of our waterbed, snuggling his face into the pillows on the floor, and sleep away the day.

I’d call him again sometimes, and carry him upstairs, where we’d go out for an outing in the grass. He’d make great circles and swoops, munching the fresh green, soaking up the sun. Some days if I had to come in, I’d set a big lacework laundry basket down over him, and he’d just wander around the yard, eating grass and clover and pushing that enormous blue second shell. He was too tall to get under the gate, anyway, but the basket kept him from wandering too far away.

And I DO miss Sheldon---he was a dear creature, just lovely to know. He came to recognize my voice and the call to dinner, and loved his time out on the lawn, just munching his way up one row of grass and down another. The previous owners of this house had put up a rather unfortunate set of tiles behind where I put my big Franklin stove, and Sheldon's food dish went right there at the side of the stove. I don't know if his eyesight was good or not, but occasionally, I would notice him making little neck-bobs toward that wall, and realized that he was trying to nip the little painted-on wisps of grass on the tile pattern. We'd go outside even after dark if I thought he needed his greenery.

We also went for walks down the drive and down to the end of the block. I’d set him on the warm asphalt, and away he’d go, down the sloping drive; I’d nudge him to turn the corner at the front sidewalk, and would walk between him and the grass verge of the street, keeping him on a fairly even course as we strolled. Cars would slow down, sometimes stop, sometimes back up for a better look. He’d occasionally wander to the right, up the hill of the lawn, for a little snack to tide him over, then back onto the sidewalk til we’d made our round.

He lived here for more than a year and a half, and grew considerably bigger during that time. I loved him, fed him, petted him, carried him upstairs and outside, but he was only pretty from the TOP. Any horror-movie producer in need of a good monster closeup could do away with all that computer-mation stuff and get a good shot of Sheldon walking away. From the back, he’s HORRIBLE---all warts and thorns and spurs and knobby legs, but he’s a sweetheart. For a time after they left, I would start to call him, or I’d stumble over AIR, thinking he might be walking beneath my feet as I moved about the kitchen.

I miss him. I’d take him back in a heartbeat.

MAYBERRY MORES

Welllll-come Sweet Springtime, We greet theeeee in Sonnnnnng!”

I can just hear Barney bleating out the high notes, and Andy’s sure baritone keeping him reasonably on key.

This time of year makes me wish for Mayberry, with the quiet streets and the friendly neighbors, and if crisis has to ripple the waters, then it concerns merely a lost dog happily found, or a misunderstanding remedied in the space of that black-and-white half-hour, with time out for enthusiastic ads for Post Toasties and Sugar Crisp.

I never did get really INTO the color episodes, and they’re not as memorable as the old ones---who really remembers those at the drop of a few words, but just say: Barney thinks Andy proposed to Miss Helen; Opie won’t give to charity; The old lady sells Barney a car----and off we go, our whole family, quoting chapter and verse, knowing the moves, the dialogue, including what Aunt Bee will be putting on the table when all is resolved and they all come home at Suppertime.

We know Barney's silly quips and Andy's solid platitudes and Opie's small realizations as readily as the multiplication table and "Whan that Aprille . . .," and the simple goodness of the lessons is knit into our doings and our manner as deeply as anything we learned on Sunday mornings from Matthew-Mark-Luke-and-John. Though the characters and the dialogue are completely artless and unsophisticated, the kindness of the stories and the values of the people are worth emulating, in any age.

It is a gentle place, a forever-Spring place, where the people say “Hay” and "Ma'am," and everybody knows and helps everybody else---very much like a lot of little towns of those decades ago.

And when the breeze and the leaves and the warm of the sun say SPRING, I can close my eyes and feel the Mayberry Morning. Not a bad place to be, any season.

KIM'S CHRONICLE

I'm going to turn today's post over to my dear friend Kim, who was the PERFECT guest, and a wonderful companion last week, as we talked, visited, chatted, cooked, looked at pictures, got to know each other, and had an all-round wonderful time.

She has posted her own chronicle of the events HERE:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=123788

I do hope you'll have a look---it was a wonderful visit, and a memorable weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Today is the birthday of someone very dear to me---my little Sis. We've lived far apart for a long time now, and have seldom managed to celebrate any holidays together. So, as always, I wish her a very Happy Birthday---long distance, as usual, but always in my heart.