Friday Flashback

AKA "I swipe a Mother's Day post from my other now-defunct blog"

 

 Remembering the Cake Lady

Mom was always "the cake lady." Whether she was making cakes for her own kids' birthdays, graduations or weddings or creating elaborate cake concoctions for the celebrations of friends, neighbors and friends of friends, for several years there, it seemed like she was baking and decorating cakes 24 hours a day, seven days a week (she probably was!).

Sometimes the cakes were a source of fun and creativity. A lot of times, they were a source of headaches and annoyance. But everyone who knew Mom knew she was "the cake lady." And everyone always commented on how beautiful her cakes were.

This was long before Ace of Cakes and the dearth of fondant on cakes. Mom created scenes -- from roses to critters -- for the most part using butter cream frosting. Sometimes she would use royal icing, chocolate molds or marzipan when it was absolutely necessary.

Like so many of her talents, I didn't inherit the cake gene. I can bake a cake, but I can't make it look the way she did. She once made a cake that looked like a huge basket of strawberries -- the basket was "woven" with butter cream frosting, the handle was royal icing over wire, and the berries were made of marzipan. It was amazing.

Update: Since taking a cake decorating class, I feel better about making cakes for Milo and/or the S.O. but I'll never match Mom's talent. I sure do miss her.

Daddy Talk

The Classics.

I shared a memory of my dad with Pam today. It was when I was young, somewhere around 10. My dad rented a movie for the family called Thunder Warrior. It was certainly a cheese fest, a bit of a rip off of Rambo only with a Native American as the lead. It was a terrible movie from my recollection. I think my dad secretly liked it, but I can only guess. I remember my brother and I thought it was terrible on a whole lot of levels. Kind of a feat really to get kids to think it was so cheesy. Its a funny memory only because my dad picked up the sequel a few years later.

We gave him an endless amount of ribbing about it, how we hated it because it was so terrible and this and that but we still watched it. I can't remember what happened with the movie, what the plot was or who the characters were. There were plenty of times where we watched good movies or forgettable movies, but nothing like this. Nothing that sticks in my mind. It doesn't bother me that this movie was bad and it sticks in my memory, I think the worst part about it is wondering if my dad took it too hard.

I may just make the boy suffer through it when he gets older. I hope he has a memory of it, it will probably be a good memory for him. Just got to figure out the right time to do it and where to get a vcr. Most importantly I need to find the 80 dollars to buy it because it is a "classic" now.