Reflections on making my own birthday cake

The first thing I want to state right off the bat is that my husband offered––REPEATEDLY––to be the provider of my birthday cake (theoretically, even by baking it himself) so that I wouldn't have to be the one to make it.  

This could have been mine. Perhaps I chose poorly. . . 

But I wanted to make it, for a number of reasons. One of them being that I could have a jumping-off point for these reflections. 

(Everything is copy, as Nora Ephron's mother supposedly told her.)

The second thing I have to get out on the table is that while the writing on this blog started out snappy and light-hearted, it has devolved into murkier regions that could be considered navel-gazing (maybe core-gazing, in this case), though hopefully not all the way into self-pity or maudlin sentimentality.

Well, put on your mukluks: It may get a little mushy underfoot tonight.

A while back I proposed that the Weight Watchers maxim that nothing tastes as good as thin feels isn't correct. 

Another premise of a healthy eating philosophy is that food isn't love.

Again, I have to disagree.

My mother did a lot of baking. She cooked too, of course, but it was the baking that was her forte––or maybe it was just that eating the baked goods was my forte. Sweet rolls, cookies, brownies, raisin breads, challahs, cakes of all kinds––but birthday cakes were the pieces de resistance. The reason I make themed birthday cakes for my family is because she did. Hers were better––more creative, more elaborate, better executed. It's not a competition––I don't mean it that way. I'm just letting you know the facts, because you didn't see all of her cakes. 

I do have some photos, so here's one to prove my point. 

She PAINTED with the frosting.

But the enjoyment of and pleasure in birthday cake–baking got passed down, along with some of the talent. 

She wasn't up to baking my cake the last several years. At least twice, my sweet daughter did the baking, at her grandmother's bidding and with some phone consultation between them, I think; and I believe I've made my own cake a couple of other times in my adulthood, when geography was an issue. So, it's not an "Oh, poor me" thing at all. It's really fine.

The other thing I want to say about baking and my mother is this. And to be honest, I wrote some of this a while ago, at the time that it happened:

My mother never threw away anything sweet. It was one of her superstitions. There were several more that had to do with not throwing things away. When I cleaned out her apartment, I found a stack of old calendars in the closet––used and unused––because she would not discard them, and dozens of empty compacts (Revlon Love Pat, if you want to know) because they contained mirrors and she couldn't risk them breaking, I guess. And anything sweet had to be either consumed or stored indefinitely. 

Because she had stopped baking a few years ago, there was a large glass container holding nearly a full five pounds of sugar in her kitchen cabinet. As I cleaned out the kitchen, I left the container of sugar until near the end. It wasn't among the objects that had to be wrapped up in newspaper to remain buried in a carton in my garage for who knows how long.  So, in one of my last trips, I tucked the glass container in the crook of my arm and brought it home, to my kitchen.

And then, as I made Passover desserts a month later, I used her sugar. As I did today, in my birthday cake. And what it felt like was that I was sprinkling some of her sweet, magical, don't-ever-throw-it-away essence––yes, like ashes––into me and my family. 

Some mourners spread ashes into the ocean, or in a garden, or on a mountaintop, because that was what had special meaning for their loved one. But this is what is fitting for my mother––baker of comfort and celebration and love.

Food isn't love? You can't expect me to believe that, can you?