This year I am going to attempt to make Christmas cake. You know the kind. Fruit cake absolutely drenched in rum. I mean so completely soaked absorbed in rum no one underage should touch it. My mom used to make it every year. She usually started on her birthday. That's today. Mom died four years ago and we haven't had fruit cake in as many years.
Here's the funny thing though. The Christmas after mom died, I checked in her special cookbook, the one she had since she was married. It contains her hand written notes for many of her favourite recipes that became the family favourites. I flipped the delicate pages - many of them going back to the early 1960s, and found Christmas cake! Christmas cake 1975, Christmas cake 1979, Christmas cake 1982, and on and on until the late 1990s! Each year, a variation on an original recipe that was never found! Well... which was was the GOOD ONE!? I was so heart broken because I couldn't figure out from mom's notes which version in which year she liked best!
There was no evaluation to know which cake everyone loved. I couldn't bake the cake that year.
For the next few years I looked in the pages but couldn't cope with the endless variations. Today, in honour of my mom's birthday, I am going to study all the variations and make a small cake. I am not about to mail Christmas cake to my brothers - although perhaps I should to continue that tradition too! I really love a nice boozy slice of Christmas cake with a cup of tea when I read in bed at night. I usually eat cake til well past the Lenten season has begun! It won't be nearly as good as what my mom used to make, but I want to give it a shot.
Every now and again, I wonder what my mom would tell me - what advice she would give me about the frustrations and pain I have had in my marriage. I can bet she would start by telling me, "well that's what you get for NOT marrying a nice Ukrainian Catholic boy! He won't ever understand what you're about!" Can you see the eyes rolling! I dated nothing but... until I left home for grad school. They were no prizes either! But I am also thinking she would understand and help me get through this. I am pretty sure she would take on the spouse if I needed her to. Her grandchildren were always her pride and joy, and I expect that if nothing else it would be that that would be uppermost in any of the decision making.
Tonight I will start the Christmas cake. Dark, heavy, full of candied cherries and dates, and a whole lotta rum!
Happy Birthday Mom.
I love you and I miss you every day!
I love you and I miss you every day!
Call your mom. Get the right recipe!
2 comments:
I am SO happy to hear that you are going to give the Christmas Cake a try. It may not be the exact one, but you will continue the tradition of the cake itself. THAT is what is most important. When you hit on a recipe that you love, then you make sure your girls know which one it is.
My kids know where to go for my "good" recipes, as opposed to my "bad" recipes. Heh heh! They are in a cookbook a girlfriend made which now holds friends recipes as well as my own. They know to guard the book with their lives, lest the super-secret cookie recipe gets out. *giggle*
love ya,
~ skupper
well.... I might have to send cake to friends.... if I can find them! Welcome to the blog! ANd do feel free to comment any time and all the time. Interactive so much more interesting.
Skup.... I too have my secret recipes that the kids love. They will know where and how to find them.... if they are good! ;-)
Stay tuned!
Marie
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