Let Me Eat Cake.

I gotta tell you...the last week has been nothing short of hellacious.

First there was my dental appointment which was supposed to be $350 but jumped to $800+ once I was in the chair and the words "root canal" came out of my dentist's mouth.

Then there was my baby dog Pookie's spay appointment, looming over me like an Acme anvil in a RoadRunner cartoon.

I swear, I am an irrational, neurotic lunatic when it comes to everything that dog.

Anyway, we then got some truly horrific news about someone Mister was friendly with who used to work for him...and then 24 hours later we get more bad news from another friend about his mother passing on!

With this kind of bad juju circling about and making everyone and everything weary and wary, there was only one logical thing to do:  bake a cake.

In my opinion, there is no question that cake is not the answer to.
There is no problem, situation, conundrum, event, circumstance, happening...  
:::deep breath:::  ...predicament, holiday, experience, calamity, miracle, catastophe or milestone...  :::phew!:::...in which a cake is inappropriate.

Ask Mister and Juanita (Valdez - my barista daughter's new nickname) and they will tell you that there is nothing I love more than cake. 

I grew up in a city where every neighborhood had at least one bakery (if not 3 or 4) and going to that bakery was a big deal.  I have memories of walking hand-in-hand with my grandfather downtown where he always bought me a charlotte russe.  I bet not a lot of you even know what that is.  It was a luscious dessert that came in a fancy cardboard sleeve.  Our bakery's version was constructed with the bottom of the sleeve having a layer of airy sponge-like cake (like a ladyfinger) and the pièce de résistance of the thing was the 4 or 5" of real-deal whipped cream on top of the cake.  As if that wasn't enough fun in and of itself, the cardboard allowed you to actually push all of this up from the bottom so you didn't miss a drop of its lusciousness.  Like some kind of old school cake popsicle.
(To this day I have not lost my enthusiasm for real-deal whipped cream, either.)

Mister and I, both sentimentalists, talk frequently about how glad we are to have grown up when we did and how sad it is that kids nowadays will not have anywhere near the caliber of childhood memories that we have.  And that includes the delicious anticipation of a trip to the bakery.   Try pulling a kid away from the television/computer/cell phone today to go to the bakery...most of them would look at you like you have 3 heads.
I say 'most of them' because I have some hope that somewhere there are parents out there who are still teaching their kids the greatness of simple things.

 This is not me.  But it could be.

Speaking of simple, I'm not a real big fan of what people are doing with cakes all over the place now.  Cakes as art and all that fancy-schmancy stuff.  Yes, I think the creativity is amazing; yes, I watch the shows; no, I don't think power tools and baked goods should ever exist in the same space.  See the picture of the cake I baked the other day up top?  Looking all perfectly imperfect, just like the best cakes do.
Think of it this way:  your grandma never used a dowel to assemble anything she baked.

I make no apologies for my love of cake.  In fact, I think that if more people got back to eating cake/dessert that there'd be less of the bad stuff that seems to dictate people's lives these days.
Besides, people come together over cake/dessert.  We did, with the one shown above.
Also, please don't forego making a cake/dessert/bakery memory in favor of your waistline.  I promise that when the big day comes and you're laying there looking back on your memories, you won't be thinking "oh, thank goodness I didn't partake in that fun time when everyone was having cake".  Au contraire, mon frere.

I recall one birthday - my 4th, I think - where the plan was to go to my aunt's house.  The relatives would be gathered and ready to heap attention, presents and cake upon my starry-eyed birthday self.  Except I woke up sick that day.  Too sick, they said, to have my party.  It's 40 years later and I still remember my disappointment.
At the height of my misery I heard the distinct sound of car doors closing outside of our house and I raced to the window and saw my cousin, uncle and aunt getting out of the car...and my aunt had in her hands an honest-to-goodness princess cake.  Pink!  Layered like a wedding cake!  I couldn't go to my birthday party so they brought it to me.
And that is when I learned the magic of cake.

Then there was the time when I was spending the summer in North Carolina countryside at my dad's house.  I spent a lot of time learning how to cook from my father's formally-trained girlfriend (Le Cordon Bleu) and she decided that I should make a birthday for the elderly man, Mr. Taylor, who lived up the way.  The cake was a big chocolate affair and I carried it across several back yards and presented it to him and his wife and he reached into his back pocket and wiped at his eyes with his handkerchief and I thought maybe he was sweating but later I figured out that he wasn't.
And that, too, is when I learned the magic of cake.

Last but not least...the first birthday I had with Mister.  He completely screwed up the whole day by doing a whole lot of nothing and when evening time came I started getting a little hot under the collar in a "you-can't-seriously-think-that-I-want-to just-sit-home-on-my-birthday" kind of way.  Finally, when I was thisclose to hysterics, he had no choice but to spill the surprise party beans.  I hate surprise parties but somehow that didn't matter when we arrived at the restaurant and all of our friends were there and there was love & kisses & presents & laughter & fun and I forgot all about hating surprise parties.  
Then out came a giant cake with a picture of me sitting on a motorcycle on it!  I could not believe that this man had gone through all of this trouble and pulled all of this off on my behalf.
And that was the night that I was reminded of the magic of cake...and a whole lot of other important things.

Simple Awesomeness.

Last year, in January, I got really super sick.  My lung collapsed - POOF! just like that! - because of pneumonia I didn't know I had and I wound up in the CCU for a few days and in the hospital for a total of 10 days.  Scary, life-changing stuff, I assure you.

All of this occurred a few months into my husband's (aka Mister Lovestuff or Mister, for short) unemployment (Mister was still my boyfriend back then).  So, while him being unemployed sucked gigantically, him being unemployed during my major crisis was a blessing 'cause it enabled him to be at my side day and night in the hospital bringing me the kind of comfort only he can provide.  Plus he got to watch over and take care of me when I was back at home recovering. 

And take care of me he did.

He cooked me three meals a day and I'm not talking about cereal or Hot Pockets, baby.  He cooked me real food with real ingredients since you need to eat well when you're recovering from anything icky and he was intent on not letting me do anything but recover.

One of the things he would make for me for lunch was grilled cheese, one of my faves.

Perfect grilled cheese sandwiches that he would cut into six triangular pieces 'cause he knows I like any- and every-thing to look cute and all whimsical-ish...and, yes, that does even include food.

To this day the thought of all those grilled cheese sandwiches he made for me brings tears to my eyes which is why I got to thinking about all of this today when I made myself the grilled cheese sandwich shown above.
Sounds crazy, right?  I mean, come on, it's just a couple of slices of bread and some cheese, right?

Wrong.  Those sandwiches were two slices of bread and some cheese, cut up all cutesy-like...and were imbued with big love, baby, plain and simple.  Watching big ol' Mister make sure everything he made for me was just right and cut in a way that would make me smile...then carried into where I was resting and served to me on a paper plate with a little folded napkin?  Redefines priceless. 

That's the magic of simple.
That's what makes simple so awesome.

Try not to take the simple things for granted otherwise you might miss the stuff that matters most.