Cake

It won’t be long until the cake time is here. I’ve practiced twice with the two cakes I’ll enter in the state fair August 11th. I made the big white cake and the pineapple upside down cake for the cake booth at the St. Agnes Carnival two weeks ago. Then the week after I made both cakes and gave them away. Reports were good so I’m hopeful again this year.

During a re-run of Martha’s Show this week, a man made an astounding coconut cake. He didn’t separate the eggs. He put the whole eggs in the batter. He used 2-10” cake pans. He also split his 2 baked layers into 6 layers. His filling was different from his frosting. He used European butter that cost $6 a pound! Consider the cost of this spectacular coconut cake; 6 eggs, 6 ½ cups cream, 2 ½ pounds of butter, 6 cups white sugar and 5 cups confectioner’s sugar. The completed cake weighs 15 pounds, and a single slice weighs one pound! He sells 20 a month and ships them overnight anywhere. The cake cost $100. I’m not going to check out the shipping.

The white cake recipe I’ve been using the past four years is a variation of another “Martha” cake. To keep it a white cake I separate the eggs, saving the yokes for something else and whipping the whites. Then for the final assemble I gently fold the whites into the batter. This adds height. I use 3-9” pans and split each baked layer into two. I make the frosting from a traditional 7-Minute Icing recipe but split it into two bowls. To one I add either raspberry or apricot preserves, using this mixture between the layers. I finally cover the outside of the cake with the pure white frosting.

One thing he does is as he assembles the layers is drizzle simple syrup over the layers to make them moist. I may do that myself with a variation.

I’m going to cut down the coconut cake recipe and make a 1 layer version as a test. If it tastes better than my recipe, I may make the investment and bake the coconut cake without the coconut!

Geese across my path.

Driving on a usual road one morning, I was delayed by a group of geese friends walking across my path from the field bordered by trees where they sleep each night, to the side of the road where the creek flows. These mid July mornings are cool. A few days the humidity is low. There’s no bite to the air as in mid October. It is warm but if you don’t have to load a truck, you remain cool.

This small welcome delay has occurred before. Once in the afternoon with a friend, we were headed back from the errand. I had my camera with me and the geese group was heading to the field rimmed by trees. Cars approaching us stopped as we did. Five minutes after we had stopped all webbed feet were in the grass, standing as they often do, conversing with one another about all matters of interest to geese.

This morning the lead goose had gotten half way into my lane and I could have quickly gone around him to save those moments waiting for the flock to pass. I stopped and with the windows down on my truck I heard the quacks from the group. These were not harsh squalls often heard standing on the ground as a wing of geese fly toward the south. This was the soft sound of communication between the birds.

I wonder how it would be to be a goose, whose only industry is to sleep in the shade of a wood, eat of an open field of fescue, and walk to the other side of a road to the creek. Although I cannot see into the creek when I pass, as it is deep in an earthen gully, I imagine floating on the cool brisk flowing water, ducking my head to eat water bugs, and bringing my wet face up out again, fed. Does drama occur in a flock of geese? Are there rivalries between the males and females? I do not want to do research this to the extent I would learn the answers. I like believing in the idyllic life of geese.

The Nap.

In the heat of summer when after noon the sun is hard light and the air is still thick and hot, a nap beckons. To be lying on clean cotton under a ceiling fan, air cooled by air conditioning, without interruption by phones or a knock at the door is a luxury few of us have as a choice. Yet when talking to friends or business associates I’m surprised to hear naps are normal for some.

Just this morning a segment on one of the annoying morning shows was about sleep. Americans don’t get enough sleep. We a gain weight if we don’t get enough sleep. Every adult should get at least 8 hours and 10 isn’t too much. Think of that.

Some employers have set aside rooms and beds for naps. In large cities, there are nap businesses just down the street from the huge office towers, so workers can stop by for a forty-five minute nap. I figured it out, if we work the new 4 day week, 12 hours a day, nap every day and sleep 10 hours recommended, there’s only 6 hours a day left for everything else.

I think of those 18 months I worked two full time jobs and am amazed.

A full moon is coming.

Hot summer days often start with cool sunny mornings. I cannot describe the way I feel when I drive out of the lot up the hill and sun hits the front of the car. I wear sunglasses and that’s a good thing, for I would be blinded without them. This same trip most days of each week illustrates the change that comes as the sun and the moon make their trips with the seasons.

How long have these same paths been traveled and this same land witness to the sun and moon.

I noticed when I was out last night that the moon is near full. It was bright in the sky. Tomorrow night it will be full and when I drive up the hill to leave the next morning. On Wednesday or Thursday this week the moon will linger there above the sun.

Another astounding thing is that every human on the earth, this small blue marble, sees the same moon and the same sun, when they look up. The bright blue sky above my yard, near the trees and the wild honeysuckle, is the exact same sky seen by a young boy in Iraq or a woman standing under her laundry in Peru.

Books have history.

A vice of mine is purchasing hard cover books. I don’t buy paperback books. I buy hard cover books. This is a habit of long standing and would be the last thing I would give up before shelter and food.

Friends sometimes give me their books, if they need the room. It is fun to see what I end up with. One time by organizing what I had, I discovered I had two books written by Colon Powell. I knew I hadn’t bought them, but there I was with two of his books.

A friend recently gave me three books. They were very old. Her mother had died and these were in her things. There were inscriptions in two of them but my friend said the names were not familiar. This makes me wonder, did her mother purchase these at a tag sale or had a friend given them to her.

I have very few books with inscriptions. In books that were given to me as gifts there’s sometimes a note of who gave the gift with the date. There’s a couple signed by the author when I had a bookstore as a client. These days I only write inside the front cover the date I finished reading them for the first time.

Slamming into the world.

A boss of mine back before my business, told me I had a lead foot. He was right. At the time he said this, I’d been driving a company car and hit the curb hard making an exit off the expressway at twenty mph over the limit. The wheel was pushed back out of place and ruined.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s I got about 5 speeding tickets, on surface streets and the expressway. It was normal for me to drive ten miles over the limit and I was often driving at speeds in excess of twenty miles over the limit. Yes, I did this even when expressway speeds were 70 mph in Indiana and Kentucky!

After my last ticket in 1997 I have made an effort to drive the speed limit.

In the past year with the price of gas rising from $1.90 to $4.39, I’ve used driving slowly as a method of saving gas. There are things I have to drive to, not matter how I try to change my way of life, so you will see me driving 30 in a 35 zone and 55 in a 60 zone. When I drive north each month for my regular appointment I drive 60 in a 70 zone. It works!

Other drivers don’t drive the speed limit or anywhere near to it. I drive with my lights on and if someone is coming fast behind me, I flash my break lights. I find it especially amusing when a Hummer or a Ford Expedition flies by at 90.

I wonder what I was such a rush for all the years previous.

Time & Tranquility

It’s my opinion there are two kinds of people, in regards to getting where you’re expected on time.

A friend told me when he went to a doctor or dentist, they had 15 minutes to take him back and start the appointment. If they didn’t do so, he left and didn’t pay co-pay. He believes he’s trained many a doctor with this method. In the same regard, when he has a client call for an appointment, he will be on time and will wait days for them to appear. It’s a matter of who holds the power. He does with the doctor and his client does in that circumstance.

Myself, I’ve always felt my time was not as valuable as the person I had the appointment with, so I’ve spent many hours waiting for the appointed hour, having been early. If the appointment was for 10 a.m., I’ll be there at 9:50 a.m. and wait until 10:30 a.m. for the other person to appear.

I have given thought to this. When a particular person is always 30 plus minutes late, the time for the appointment isn’t really 10 a.m. It’s really 10:30 a.m. I’ve adjusted by calling the person or office at five minutes to and asking if they are there. If they are not, I don’t arrive until 10:20 a.m. Once in a while they will be there, and have to wait for me. I don’t apologize for being late. I just arrive and begin the appointment.

The person who is always late, in fact almost precisely the same amount of time late under the same circumstance, believes their time is more valuable than any other person. They are willing to immediately say they are sorry to be late and are always primed to tell you exactly why they are late. The reason is always someone else’s fault. Whereas I knew your time target and all things leading up to that target I worked toward the goal. If someone tried to delay me, I told them I was sorry I had to go.

I don’t react by chewing them out. I react by taking a book to read. I’ve read many books this way.