The Chronicles of Cake

I’d flip through mom’s Betty Crocker cook book to the page with the devil’s food cake frosted white.  I’d stare, fantasize and drool, like porno. Eventually I helped mom bake, measuring flour, stirring batter.  At ten, I started making cakes by myself.  I loved serving dad cake.  “Mmm mmm!  Sandee, this is good cake,” daddy would say with cake in his mouth.  Cake would get in his beard.  He had full cheeks and his eyes told jokes.  He’d chew, look at me, nod, and clink his fork to the plate until the end.  “Hey, cut me another piece of that cake Sandee.”  Win!

My cakes then were box cakes with Duncan Hines Frosting.  I was meticulous about stirring the batter 300 times – God forbid I should fuck up and stir too many times – I only imagined what manner of wrong this would cause.

I matured and made scratch cakes.  I made this spice cake after work and would eat the whole thing in a night.  It didn’t affect my weight because I smoked a lot, exercised and took stress pills.  I made cakes for boyfriends in heart shaped pans.  I favored lemon cakes with lemon frosting that I made all from scratch.  I made up this cake with coriander in it.  Finding a desk drawer at work stuffed with ketchup, mustard and teriyaki sauce packets I threatened to make a condiment cake.  Jeff, my boss, he liked that, “Condiment cake!  Hee hee hee!”  He said.  I took a ginger molasses cake sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar to my Auntie’s on X-mas.  When it got there the confectioner’s sugar melted but it was still scrumptious.  I bought a fancy cake carrier to take cakes to people’s houses.

It’s been a while since I’ve baked a cake.  But I still eat the shit out of a piece of cake.  I love the thick white frosted cake at work from somebody’s birthday or from a leaving the job party. I bought a piece of black forest cake from the Carrot Top that I ate slowly, with my eyes closed – it was unbelievable!  When Summer Solstice Girl suggested red velvet cake I bought a piece.  I almost died eating it.  I cannot buy a whole cake, or make a cake without having company because I would eat the entire cake no problemo.

As a child, frustrated at having to eat asparagus and lamb with mint jelly for dinner, I dreamed of growing up and eating whatever I wanted.  I think of this now when I eat cake for dinner and it makes me happy.