Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Caked


One day as I was browsing through my photo album, I noticed that there was a common food photographed every year.

The little black forest that we took with us when I spent my birthday at the – bleep! – public zoo. Christmas white cake made by an aunt. The evidence of raw barbarism that me and my classmates did on Frances’s wedding cake . Another birthday cake during my birthday dinner at the pad-when I shamelessly informed my friends that they will squat on the magic carpet – with lots of barbecue and beer – Morroccan style.

Cake! For me, the queen of the event. From dacquoise to cakes bought from neighborhood bakeries- may not be the most expensive part of the dinner- but a cake is a cake is a cake. I think it is one of the things in the world that no one can say anything sarcastic about.

When I was child, there were afternoons that I looked forward to walking home ( didn’t matter if my knapsack was heavy with books) so I could peek at the display window of the local bakery. I wondered why cakes stayed too long in that window display- like, three weeks? – and still not rot. Then once the fondant was chipped off and I saw that the cake was made of Styrofoam after all. Oh well!

Whatever, I think that child in me wasn’t lost yet. I love cakes – no matter what!

Then in the college dorm twelve years ago, my dorm mates and I would gather around the piano after dinner. We would take turns playing. The piano prodigies – music majors and gifted medical students – would play Rachmaninoff and songs from Broadway plays – and I, ok, occasional ‘funeral music’ (those andantes played in funeral cars and dying swans). Then when everybody had left the music hall, I was back to my old ultra favorite: a piece in John Thompson’s piano lesson for children, “The Birthday Cake”.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The carpet ride dinner party, i like that one!! Can i come to the next one?? :-)
And you play piano too? That takes the cake! (okay i admit that's a very lame joke. hahaha)

Lisa Johnson said...

I'm so with you on this one! I love cake! Beautiful pictures! ; )

1Northeast said...

ZC, anything goes at home - magic carpet rides to black parades. I'll fly to NY- by magic ;)

Anali, we always have the kids inside of us! Thanks.