Cake Walk

When I was little, I mixed sugar and water together with milk and froze it.

I called it "caramel".

I have no idea why my mother let me do these things.

She was always game for letting us girls "test out a recipe".

Even if the actual recipe didn't exist.

One time I decided to put on a cakewalk for all the neighbor kids.

I had no idea what a cakewalk was.

I had read about it in a book, and thought.

"WHAT?!! You can win a whole cake all for yourself?"

Paid for four cake mixes out of my allowance .

Made them ALL in about an hour.

My arms got really tired, and after the second cake I pretty much quit stirring, and just dumped the ingredients together.

I used bread pans and casserole dishes.

to make

6 cakes.

Several had sink holes.

All of them had some egg shell.

It's super tough to crack an egg when your shoulders don't clear the counters.

I mixed and matched the icing

german chocolate on the strawberry cake

vanilla mixed with strawberry on the lemon cake

lemon on the strawberry cake

german chocolate on the "marble cake" (don't ask)

etc.

I asked every kid in the neighborhood pay a couple of dollars to play "musical chairs cake walk".

(Well, I didn't ask Chad. He was a bully. He once forced my friend Lindsay to eat grass. And even if he did have a cat with the same name as my cat, we were definitely NOT friends.)

They marched around to music courtesy of my DJ sister and the boom box.

If they landed on a number corresponding to the numbered cake, they won a sinkhole, eggshelled, plastic-wrapped cake with icing that I had casually been tasting (directly off of the cake) throughout the process.

One meticulous and whiney kid complained about the condition of his cake.

This, I thought, was totally unfair.

He got a WHOLE cake. All to himself.

"beat it kid" I thought to myself.

But what I said was,

"That's what we've got, take it or leave it."

He took it.

Bet his mom made him toss it.

Serves him right

Ungrateful little peon.

Tonight my five year old heard what we were having to eat and whined,

"Is there going to be something ELSE for dinner??"

I wanted to say "beat it kid"

but instead I said something like,

"that's what I've got, take it or leave it."

She took it.

I am tossing the leftovers.

Poor little kid.

*sigh*

For me, cooking has never been a cakewalk.