Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Cakewalk of life part 2 - battle is joined (In which our hero tries to turn the cake starter into a recognizable Christmas cake) by J. G. Fabiano After three weeks of stirring, turning, adding fruit, nuts, and every other type of sweet tasty thing in the cupboard, the Christmas cake starter was finally ready to be made into Christmas cakes. My wife told me she knew it was ready because its surface was beginning to foam. An image of the witches’ scene in Macbeth flashed before my eyes but I thought it best to keep it to myself. My wife, being the totally organized person that she is, placed the directions on the counter. She then set out the ingredients necessary to complete the process. As I passed her in the kitchen she told me this looked like an easy task and she should be done in about an hour. Being a veteran of past new recipe attempts I retreated to my office to contemplate other things. A few minutes later she asked me to come down and help mix the fruit and nuts into the batter. I didn't think this would create a problem so I joined her in the kitchen, grabbed a large wooden spoon, and attempted to stir the mixture so that all the little bumps and bubbles would disappear. The Christmas cake concoction had the consistency of salt marsh muck. I could hardly move the spoon through the mixture. At first I held the bowl with one hand and the spoon with the other and, with all my might, attempted to move the spoon through the thick gunk. After a few minutes of struggle without any noticeable progress, I asked my wife to hold the bowl while I gripped the spoon with both hands and tried to move it and, with one mighty pull, broke the spoon in half. I stood holding the broken wooden handle while the rest of the spoon stood upright in the mixture making an insulting gesture at me. I then handed the broken stick to my wife and told her that lumps might not be that bad. She asked me to leave and I did as I was told.All was quite for about half an hour but then I heard a loud screech from the kitchen asking who the hell thought that this much starter cake would fit in a single baking dish. I thought about calling down the stairs to tell her the baking instructions were probably written a century earlier when cake-baking dishes were a lot bigger. I decided against this when I heard her arguing with the cake about whether it needed more fruit. For the next hour and a half I heard a lot of angry banging and clattering and loud mutterings about how this would be the last time she would attempt anything so foolish as a Christmas cake. Then there was silence for a while until I started to smell something that made me think of a forest fire in Hawaii. A smell that suggested burning pineapple and cherries. I had only made it to the top of the stairs when the next thing I heard was my wife screaming at the cake again."The damn thing said to cook it at 300 degrees," she said. Then I heard the oven door open. Then a shocked: "Oh my God!" Being a chemistry teacher there are certain terms I don't like to hear. "Oh-oh" is one. "Oops" is another but, the one exclamation I do not like to ever hear is: "Oh my God!" I ran down to the kitchen and observed my wife staring into the oven through a thick gray plume of smoke. "Look at this mess!" she complained. I waved my hands to disperse the smoke and saw what looked like one giant Christmas blob that had overflowed all of the little baking dishes to become one giant wad of smoldering Christmas cake. "It smells good," I said, trying to sound encouraging.Apparently these were not the words my wife wanted to hear. "Look what you made me do," she hissed. For the life of me I could not remember ever having asked my wife to make a Christmas cake. Seeing my look of bafflement she went on to explain that since I was so enthralled with the idea of the history of Christmas cakes she thought I wanted to have her make a bunch of them. I told her I was also interested in the history of World War Two but that didn't mean I wanted her to invade Europe. This, of course, was the wrong thing to say and succeeded only in starting World War Three. This battle ended, as all battles with my wife end, with me retreating to my office where I keep a bottle of brandy for medicinal purposes. For the next hour all was quiet. I got some work done and the aroma wafting upstairs from our kitchen was delightful. Later, I found out my wife made up her own directions for the recipe, did not fill the cake dishes as much as she did before, and cooked the cakes on a large baking pan to catch the overflow instead of having it burn in the oven.Since all was quiet I decided to take another peek into the kitchen. What I saw intrigued me. My wife was bending over one of the cakes attempting to pull a toothpick out of it. Being curious I asked what she was doing. She told me she was checking to see if the cakes were done by sticking in a toothpick. If there was no cake mixture on the toothpick after you removed it this would mean that the cake was done. Of course the challenge here was to pull anything out of a cake mix that had the consistency of super glue. I told her the toothpicks would make a good decoration for the cake. She told me to go back up to my room. After the cakes had cooled my wife called up to me and asked if I would like to try a slice. I hurried back downstairs in eager anticipation. After three weeks of waiting, stirring, turning, adding fruit, nuts, and every other type of sweet tasty thing the Christmas cake was ready for tasting. I took an experimental bite and smiled. The daylong battle had ended in triumph for both of us. The cake was absolutely remarkable; rich, light and extremely tasty. After I ate my second, loaded with butter, I told my wife she should make this a new Christmas tradition. She told me to go back up to my room. The End
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