Have your cake, Eat it twice, Read it once
This day, last month, I became another year closer to thirty than twenty and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. My stomach, however, felt like I needed to either make cake, have cake, or eat cake. Needless to say, I accomplished all of the above and I’m well on my way to finishing a second slice as I write this piece. You're probably wondering why it has taken me an entire month to finish the second slice. Well, it hasn't. It just took me an entire month to get around to making a second cake. So, if we're going to keep track, I'm on my fourth slice in a month's time. Okay sixth…. Two slices for me, two slices for my mom, and two slices for me again.
While my emotions might be difficult to read right now, the cake I made is not. For starters, "Mom" is much easier to write on a cake than "Suzy" (or any name for that matter). For those who don’t know, Suzy was my mom and she would have turned 56 today (this year). She also would have had some choice words to say (in good humour) about getting older like she did every year. And where there are ever choice words, you bet there’s usually cake nearby, even if it isn’t someone’s birthday. That was kind of our thing; choice word table banter, but never without baked goods. Kind of like of Gilmore Girls after 3 shots of espresso-espresso-espresso.
One thing my mom and I often bantered about was how people always spelled my name wrong, even when it was written right in front of their face. I remember one year in particular, she attempted to create a Birthday cake for me, happily knowing my name would be spelled correctly on it, but she accidentally dropped it. Just like that the icing on the cake literally became the cake on the icing that fed my mother’s disappointment. But wait, there’s more — more cake and more disappointment... It was about an hour away from my party and there was no way my mom was going to attempt another baking session. Therefore, she resorted to ordering a store bought cake as a replacement, but when we went to pick it up, surely enough my name had been misspelled with a “C”. Of course my mom wasn’t too thrilled about it. In fact, she was more upset than I was over the whole thing, and when I tried to comfort her by saying, “It’s okay, Mom”, she “quietly” replied with, “No, honey, it’s not “OK”, because apparently nobody knows what a freaking “K” is.” Only, instead of “freaking”, she said “f*cking” (with zero stars). And if anyone knows anything about my mom’s “quiet” voice it’s that she doesn’t have a quiet voice. She did, however, have a whisper that was louder than anyone’s normal speaking voice. Anyway, by about the tenth apology from the baker, I honestly just felt bad for the poor bastard. He then tried to draw a line in front of the “C” in attempt to make a “K”, but sadly only made it worse. Now, not only did the cake not spell my name correctly, it didn’t even look like my name or anyone’s name for that matter. It went from “Happy Birthday, Erica” to “Happy Birthday, Erilca”. What the f*ck, right? My name is Erika by the way (in case you didn’t catch that).
Fast forward to the following year... My mom made sure not to drop the cake this time. Instead, she didn't measure the ingredients... Like, at all. That was another one of our things; not following recipes or just plain winging it — a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, and often just using whatever we could find in the pantry. And to this day, that cake she made is one of the best cakes I have ever consumed. So much that I tried to replicate it today in honour of her. And let me tell you, it was good, but just not the same, and I think a large part of that is because she is not physically here to enjoy the cake with me. She will forever be my missing ingredient and that cake will forever be measured by the love she put into it (plus how ever many choice words).
Anyway, at some point between the dropped cake and all the unmeasured ingredients, the saying, “have your cake and eat it too” started resonating with me for so many reasons. While most people say, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”, I think you can eat it twice (who doesn’t love second helpings), and read it as well. Take a name for example — the name is the cake, how it is spelled is how it’s retained, and how it is said is how it’s consumed. Make sense?
Now as much as I wanted to include an actual recipe to the cake my mom made, that’s obviously impossible, considering there is no recipe. However, what I do have are some conversion charts for measurements and ingredient replacements. These charts have always been helpful, because whenever my mom and I weren’t “just winging it”, we were usually manipulating old recipes of our own or trying to get company to come up with something new. That being said, most of those recipes actually required measurements, but we didn’t always have every ingredient on hand that a particular recipe called for, and when we did, we often preferred to think outside the giant box of Good Housekeeping magazines.
Anyway, I hope you find these charts helpful. I also hope to share more of my life through this blog, inspired by the food (for thought) my mother and I often shared at the dining table. But before we get into all of that, let’s just have some cake, eat it twice, and read it hopefully only once. Let’s not drop the f̶*̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶ freaking* thing either.
