Rumdum Cake

 

Pride goeth before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall.

                                    -- Proverbs 16:18

           

            My friend has been a really good cook all her life. In fact, she wrote a cookbook, had it published, and sold it from coast to coast. Like many people, I think of her as an expert, a real kitchen guru.

 

            She's not all swolled up about it. But it's nice to know she occasionally has kitchen clown acts just like the rest of us:

 

            It all started at the Bag and Save. Betty Crocker cake mixes were on sale for 89 cents. She also had a hankering for the Rum Cake recipe from her cookbook. It had been her mother-in-law's favorite, always a hit. She knew the ingredients by heart, and picked them up. She was good to go.

 

            Her adult son was coming over for dinner. He always kids her by walking into her kitchen and lifting the lid off the heirloom covered cake plate she keeps on the counter, a beautiful, swirled glass number from the 1950s. He lifts the chrome lid with the black Bakelite handle with a hopeful smile on his face . . . and then elaborately sighs when there is no cake underneath.

 

            She'd surprise him this time with the Rum Cake. Sweet! Literally!

 

            It was a busy day. She was getting ready for a garage sale, and had piles of stuff all over the kitchen counters. A roast was browning in a pot on the stove. She took it off the burner and popped it into the oven. A few minutes later, for lack of counter space, she placed the glass cake plate on the burner . . . but had forgotten to turn off the heat.

 

            POW! The glass exploded. Sharp slivers rained into the hot rum and butter glaze that she had going in the nearby saucepan.

 

            It was . . . shattering. After the glass cleanup, she started over on the glaze, leaving it to simmer.

 

            A while later, she and her adult son and his wife were in another room with the door closed, preparing for the garage sale, when he came out to put something on a pile . . . and saw that the house was filled with smoke.

 

            The forgotten glaze was ablaze!

 

            A lid took care of the blaze, but not the smoke, the black crud on the bottom of her pan, and the overwhelming odor of burnt sugar. They opened all the windows and doors, hoping a silent alarm wasn't being sent to the fire station.

 

            She started the THIRD batch of glaze. By now, there was not nearly enough rum left. Her son ran out for some more. They all thought the best idea would be to drink the rum and forget the glaze. But she nailed her feet to the floor in front of the stove so that she could not leave and screw it up again.

 

            Meanwhile, the disasters had left her with no time to make potatoes from scratch, to go with the roast. So she pulled out her tiny, hidden stash of instant potatoes that she keeps, a la Queen Esther, "for such a time as this" (Esther 4:14). Unfortunately, her husband walked into the kitchen when she was opening the foil bag. He grew up in poverty, and had O.D.'ed on instant potatoes. He made a face.

 

            So she tried to doctor them up with a few leftover "real" potatoes she'd stashed in the fridge from a few nights before. She stirred them into the fluffy mass. That's funny! It became more liquefied, rather than stiffening up.

 

             Hmmm. She ran her finger inside the leftover potatoes container . . . and tasted cream cheese frosting.

 

            Ewwwww!

 

            So they had peaches and green beans with their roast beef, and no potatoes. Decidedly un-American, and substandard for a cookbook guru.

 

            They compensated by having not one, but two pieces each of Rum Cake for dessert. She figured the cost at $53.89. Oh, well. It was delicious!

 

            That's how it goes with cooking. You take your lumps, smile, and go on. Ho, ho, ho . . . and a piece of Rum Cake. †