Cake is my Life

When I was 12 my Dad picked my sister Kim and I up from Santa Cruz and took us to his house in San Jose for a birthday celebration. I have to applaud my father for even attempting to entertain two pubescent girls who really didn't know him very well. What I remember about this event is the most delicious birthday cake I have ever eaten. It was white cake, with a blackberry filling and whipped cream frosting. Jeez, here it is 33 years later and I can still recall the pleasure of the taste and texture of that cake. This is probably when my cake obsession began. I have been trying to resurrect that cake moment for years and years and this summer, I think I found it.

In the Adirondacks there's a shop called the Marketplace in Tupper Lake. They make phenomenal sandwiches and a small but excellent selection of baked daily goods. This is the type of place that completely lacks organization, is continually understaffed and these women really have no business (but a love and good food and cash) being in this business. Keep in mind that this is my city-fied version of how I'd run things if I were running things. Like, if there are three people working, it might be a good idea for one person to take orders and money while the other two fill the orders. Nope, the same person will take my order, if I get noticed at all after 10 minutes of waiting, then she'll make my sandwich while answering the phone and taking THAT order (which will be ready 20 minutes after the caller has arrived to pick it up, making the point of calling ahead moot) and then she'll come around from behind the counter and take my money and make change. The other two behind the counter are doing either, their own version of this dance or one is baking bread while the other is filling a call in order for 19 sandwiches. So, the Marketplace is a lesson in patience and the pace of country living and it is ALWAYS worth the wait.

One day, while waiting, I spied in the back room, (which is huge and it's never really clear if you're meant to be back there or not) a round foil pan with a cake in it. I picked it up; it must have weighed two pounds...and read the label....Chocolate Carrot Cake. I thought it over for about two seconds and decided that a cake this heavy iced in chocolate frosting with sprinkles of chocolate chips and walnuts was probably worth the seven dollar investment. So, yes, I bought it.

There are a few words to describe my experience upon biting into my first slice of this cake: Ecstatic, explosive salivary response, moist, chocolatey, smooth, creamy, dense, CARROTS??? and nearly orgasmic. In other words? It tasted REALLY, really GOOD!

I went back a few days later, asked for the recipe and the owner whose name I cannot recall assured me that she never revealed her recipe sources. I gushed shamelessly about this cake and ordered another for our departure date so I could bring one home with me on a sixteen hour car ride. When I picked it up I told her I didn't want to be better than her, I just NEEDED this cake in my life. She asked me what cookbooks I used and ultimately led to the one (online no less) that would reaveal the secret recipe. I am so thankful to this woman, I can't tell you.

IS there a baker in the house? Here is the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two round cake pans.

Mix dry ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 to 2 cups sugar ( I like less, the carrots are sweet too)
1 tsp baking soda
half tsp salt
1/2 cup baking cocoa (the better quality the better, like Penzey's)

Mix the wet ingredients
1.25 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 cups finely grated carrots

Fold into the dry and mix with a hand mixer on 3 til well combined.

Pour into the pans, bake for 30 minutes. (Check with a toothpick in the
center when you first smell the cake.)

Let cool ten minutes and cool completely on racks out of the pans.

For the icing have at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese
1 stick butter
3 3/4 powdered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
3 tsp vanilla

Mix til smooth, ice the cake and sprinkle with walnut pieces and chocoalte chips, even if you don't like walnuts, it's an important texture experience.

This cake is almost fool proof. I've made it three times and it's a huge hit!! Everyone will be saying, "who made this cake???"

Enjoy, and thanks to the lady in Tupper Lake who broke down and told me where to find the recipe!

Happy Cake Eating....
Connie

Buddha on the Road

A man meets the Buddha on the road. Overwhelmed by the glorious inner light and peace of the Buddha he asks,
"Are you a God?"
"No, I am not God", says the Buddha
"Well, are you a devi?"
"No", says the Buddha
"Then you must be a saint", says the man on the road.
"I am not a saint", says the Buddha.
"Well, if you aren't a God, a devi or a saint, then what ARE you?"

"I am awake", says the Buddha.

Lisa

My friend Lisa told me yesterday that the time to begin dying is here.  11 months ago, she was diagnosed with uterine sarcoma. Uterine Sarcoma, as  far as I understand, is so rare that it accounts for only 4% of all diagnosed cancers.  In the "real" world, this means that research for treatment of this type of cancer is non-existent because it wouldn't PAY to find a way to effectively treat it when there is so much more profit to be garnered from researching treatment for  the more common and specifically female cancers as breast cancer or cervical cancer. 

For the past 10 months Lisa has undergone the chemo-therapy treatment that is the most likely to work, if only it were the right treatment.   But it's not a treatment that eradicates  uterine sarcoma  and remission  isn't part of the vocabulary and try as she might to think bigger than her health care professionals, she's now just  exhausted and in pain and an end to this suffering is beginning to seem like a viable treatment; for in the words of the Episcopal Rev. Ann Brower,  "death is truly the ultimate cure". 

Geez, and here I find myself envying Lisa at what appears to be the end of her 48 year LISA journey on earth.  I sit here and envy the vision of the bridge she faces.  I don't know what it looks like to her, but to me it's a rope bridge over a river so unfathomably far below me, that I sense it's really more of a snaking seam of ephemeral energy than the destiny of my liquid soul, who in this process,  will realize that this rope bridge is an illusion and the return to the river of life is infinite and it is only in those moments....like THIS one...that time exists, and I am here and present and awake in this moment and voila`, the fall ends, I'm once again a drop of water in the never ending flow of prana...life energy...and the moment.  Begins.  Again. 

Dear, Dear Lisa. All is well. You are loved. You are NOT alone.
Namaste` my friend

The baby blue jay

Pulling into the driveway this evening, with the top down on my '99 Saab convertible, I spied a bird in the driveway. I slowed down, and listened to the plaintive cry of a baby beseeching the mother for help. Oh...it was a baby Blue Jay and it was scared and helpless and hopping into my garage.

Can you imagine taking your first test flight and falling flat on your ass, no cloud to support you and lift you up? No wind to capture you aloft and send you soaring to a higher height where time and elements might give you a better chance at actually mastering the art of flight?

I approached the baby with my mother voice, attempting to soothe and comfort. It just turned and stared at me through the bicycle tires...what to do now? As it stands, this little one spends the night in the garage and with God's grace, may attempt a few flights in space with walls before attempting once again, flight from a nest whose boundaries have no end.

P.S. The following morning I came out to the garage to get in my car and Lucy chased the baby bird to the garage door. It swacked at her and held it's own and when I opened the door, away it hopped, kinda flew.

All is well.