Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Angel Food Cake Story


I'm not sure why, but my "Angel Food Cake Story" has become something of a legend.  Every few years, I am asked by the writers in the WWFC community:  Oh please, read the Cake Story!  Well, it's a bit long, and I'm not really willing to cut it short, so here it is, in its entirety.  Enjoy!

“Where did I go wrong?” my mother lamented when I telephoned her as a last resort for advice on a cake I was trying to bake.  You should know that my mother – except for a scrumptious lemon cake and her prize-winning German potato salad – was not a very good cook.  She enjoyed a sparkling kitchen more than good food.  I learned how to polish silver, but I didn’t learn to cook from my mother.  Nor did I get any practice in the kitchen during my twelve years in the convent, where I ate whatever was put before me without complaint, grateful I didn’t have to cook it myself.

So here I was, a year or so out of the convent and on my own, learning to cook – which was another way of saying that I was getting good at dumping all manner of things into a crock pot.  However, when a love interest entered my life, I sensed the need to make him believe I knew how to cook.  During a romantic weekend we shared at Shaker village in Pleasant Hill, KY, I even bought a Shaker cookbook, perhaps to give the impression that someday I would use it.  This happened sooner than I expected, when he suggested that, for his birthday, I bake him the coffee angel food cake we’d both admired in the book.  This I agreed to do.

Impressed with the Shaker philosophy of simplicity, I mistakenly assumed that baking this angel food cake would also be simple.  Once I’d read through the ingredients, I realized that not only would it be a lot of work, it would also not be cheap.  Besides the staples of flour and sugar, this recipe called for a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, and a special kind of coffee.  I also had to buy an angel food cake pan, and since I didn’t own an electric mixer, I decided it was probably best to buy one of those too.  

I stopped at the natural foods store for the coffee, before going on to the local Krogers grocery store, where I gathered the ingredients:  the dozen eggs, a bag of sugar, unbleached flour, a box of baking powder, the butter, and Krisko to grease the pan.  I was stumped by one ingredient – cream of tartar.  After scouring the dairy department, I searched up and down the condiment aisle.  When it didn’t turn up there, I decided to ask the Krogers manager, who seemed a bit puzzled and walked back with me to do his own search.  Finally we both decided that Mrs. Paul’s tartar sauce would probably do just as well.

Back home I mixed all the ingredients together in my largest mixing bowl.  Within seconds, the mixer’s beaters twisted and collapsed like paper clips.   Maybe the butter needed to be melted, I thought.  I left everything sitting in the bowl while I drove back to the hardware store for another set of beaters.   But after nearly an hour of beating, the mixture remained the consistency of cement.  Re-reading the recipe, I was shocked to find I should have separated the egg whites from the yolks.  No wonder the whole mess was so yellow and sticky, I thought.  Nothing to do but trash this batch and begin again.

Back at Krogers, I picked up another dozen eggs and another pound of butter, swinging by the mayonnaise section again just to make sure I hadn’t missed the cream of tartar.  With new vigor, I was careful to separate out the yolks, only breaking one or two in the process, and wondering what I was supposed to do with this bowl of floating orange slime.  In order to keep the beaters from breaking, I decided to melt the butter in a sauce pan first, which speeded up the process considerably.  I greased the angel food pan, as directed, and sloshed in the mix.  The oven had been preheated for two hours, so I was ready to pop it in. 

When the timer went off an hour later, I was speechless to find the thing had not only not risen, it had shrunk from its original size.  I could hardly recognize the thick brown mass, which weighed about fifteen pounds.  Refusing to panic, I re-read the directions again.  I was surprised to discover that I had missed the part about adding the ingredients one by one, a little at a time, beginning with the egg whites.  I also noted that the butter should be softened, deciding that completely melting it might have also jinxed me.

I was hoping not to run into the manager at Krogers this time, thus tipping him off that things were not going well with this project.  Keeping my head down and heading directly to the dairy section, I tucked another carton of eggs under my arm and grabbed another pound of butter, wondering at this point how much this cake was actually going to take out of my meager receptionist’s paycheck.

Back home I renewed my resolve.  This time everything went smoothly.  I had practically memorized the directions by now, so I was feeling confident and I scooped the mixture into the greased cake pan, smoothing it out with the spatula I’d bought during my second trip.  I set it carefully in the thoroughly pre-heated oven and waited, afraid to open the oven door one second ahead of the prescribed time.  I’d remembered hearing something about the oven door causing a cake to fall – or was that bread?  I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t afford to take the chance.  When the timer went off, I opened the oven door a crack, expecting to see my masterpiece puffed up around the rim of the pan, golden brown and glowing.  This is not, however, what was there.  All those eggs, the butter, sugar, yes even the teaspoonful of cream of tartar, were somehow reduced to a dark brown ring no higher than an inch, but every bit as heavy as the previous batch.

It was then I decided to call my mother.  “Read me the recipe,” she said, and when I did, she said, “Wow, that’s a really rich angel food cake, but with the baking powder and the cream of tartar, it should rise just fine.”

“Well,” I offered, “there was this one little problem with the cream of tartar.  What is that stuff anyway?”

“Oh, it makes the cake rise,” she went on.  “A little white powder with a whole lot of punch.”  There was a pause.  “What was your problem with the cream of tartar?”

I told her how I’d searched in the dairy section, then among the condiments – how even the store manager thought the tartar sauce would work.  There was another long pause.  “Where did I go wrong?  I’ve failed you as a mother, haven’t I?  I can’t believe you didn’t look in the baking section.”

“Mom, I gotta get going.  If I hurry, I can still make this cake.  You may have just rescued me and your reputation.”

That evening, I watched my boyfriend blow out the candles and cut into my masterpiece.  “Ummm, this is delicious,” he glowed.  “I had no idea you were such a good cook.”
I smiled as I took a bite and said, “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The Nun Shoes

I remember the shoes – heavy black grandma shoes with square toes and heels like building blocks.  Weeks before I entered the convent, my mother and I had sat in Potters, one of the few stores still selling support shoes in 1960.  I tried them on with laughter, dread and disbelief. I was seventeen.

Those shoes gave me athlete’s foot.  I never took them off, except at bedtime.  They didn’t breathe.  Summer and winter, my feet smelled and swelled and rubbed against those shoes.  I kept and shared that itchy rash with eighty other victims.  Maybe that’s why I still dread trying on shoes.  For a long time after I entered the convent, I still couldn’t believe I was wearing them.  I would look down at the floor and be caught by surprise.  “Who is the old woman dressed in my feet?”

I had been wearing the religious habit and its matching grandma shoes for five years when it happened.  One Sunday during a family visit, I held my three-year-old nephew on my lap.  When I slid him to the floor, his little frame already too heavy, he landed on my habit, which was fanned out on the floor before me.  When I tried to stand up, I couldn’t.  “Patrick, you’re standing on my dress,” I said, as I coaxed him to step off the front of my habit.  I chose the word “dress” deliberately,  knowing the word “habit” wouldn’t be in his toddler vocabulary.

He did step back, but not before staring back up at me.  “You’re not a girl,” he said.

I gasped:  “Why do you say that?”

He pointed to the floor and said,  “Girls don’t wear man shoes.”   Then he said it again:  “You’re not a girl.”

I assured him I was, indeed, a girl.  But how would he know?  I had hidden my girl under the long black cloak of self-denial, covered her up even down to my feet.  At twenty-five,  all signs of womanhood were gone.  His childish statement rang in my ears.  It still does.

Decades later, I remember the shoes.  They didn’t breathe.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Barns, Farms and Wadesville Indiana



Traveling along the Ohio River Byway, we had to pull the Blazer over to the side of the road again and again to photograph barns and farms in the spring sun.  Some were bustling and thriving... others had been long abandoned.

What struck me was the absence of noise.  Even the cows were eerily quiet.  All across Indiana and into Illinois, we found reasons to stop the car and take pictures.


Before reaching New Harmony, Indiana, we found a photo-op we couldn't resist at Wadesville.



Followed back roads through exotic Illinois villages named Carni, Eldorado, Muddy, and Vienna.  At one point, we stopped to photograph  cornfields gone fallow, filled with goldenrod, and dotted with natural gas pumps.  One pump, spewing fire, and hissing like a geyser, did not seem to bother a red wing blackbird. No sign of humans, and I couldn’t help thinking of Michael Pollan’s account of the corporations and their dynasty of corn.  We followed a backroad to track down Cougar Bluff 4 miles, but the rain had washed out the road so we had to turn back.The neon green, following spring rains, the lilac, spirea, and iris, competed with golden wildflowers thick in most former cornfields.  After a while, I had to close up the camera.  What follows are photos from an Indiana farm dotted with natural-gas wells, depleted corn fields, and flat flat land.



Sunday, March 14, 2010

Who IS the Other Kathy Wade?


I first learned about her from a news clipping in my early 30’s. The caption identified a young African-American woman and two other musicians as The Kathy Wade Trio. A few years later, the mail began arriving – addressed to me, but once I opened it I could see it was meant for her. One letter would praise my recent performance, another would thank me for the interview and photos. One contained my resume, except it was her resume. It was eerie. We had the same name, even the same alma mater – Edglcliff College. But there’s where the similarities ended. I felt guilty reading someone else’s mail. But what could I do? I ‘d reseal and return to the sender with a note: “Wrong Kathy Wade.”

Then the phone calls started. Didn’t I remember Wes? We’d met me at a local club and wouldn’t it be great to get together? Randy had read my bio and wanted to hire me for a gig. Someone had heard me sing with Duke Ellington at the White House and wanted to talk about recording. It didn’t take long to determine these calls were not for me. I had to explain that I was the other Kathy Wade. Did I have her [unlisted] phone number? Sorry, I had to answer.

In my early 40’s I won several Neighborhood Poetry contests and became the Poet Laureate of Walnut Hills. During those years, whenever anyone called for HER, I felt justified in calling myself Kathy Wade the Poet.

Then my big opportunity came. She was performing at a free concert in Eden Park. “I’m going to meet that woman,” I told my husband, “and get her phone number.”

I watched her tease the crowd with a sultry rendition of Summertime, then jazz up a version of Night and Day, and scat her way through a set of Cole Porter favorites before taking a break. She was a powerhouse of energy and smooth soul.

During the intermission I marched right onto the stage. Her manager protested but I flashed my drivers license and insisted: “I’m Kathy Wade.” She looked puzzled when I explained how people were mistaking me for her…we looked nothing alike. I asked her to do me – and herself – a favor and get listed in the phone book. She flashed a nervous smile, but before she could promise me anything intermission was over.

Over the years, I had opened mail from organizations looking forward to my performance, a local radio station hoping I’d do their wine-tasting again, a college excited about having me as their visiting artist. Once I opened an envelope to find a check for appearing at a local event. I picked up the phone and called her. With a check that size, I wanted to deliver it in person. It was a magic meeting…like finding a long lost friend.

Soon after that, my niece from Florida called. She’d lost my number and tried the 411 directory. “I’ve been talking to the other Kathy Wade,” my niece said. “You know what she said? ‘You want Kathy Wade the Writer. I get her calls all the time.’”

That gave me an idea. What if we presented a workshop together and called it Kathy Wade Squared! I could share my insights as a poet, she as a song-writer. Because Women Writing for a Change is a safe circle, this provided the opportunity for both of us to tell our truths in a confidential setting…something not available to public performers. It was a great success. “Let’s do this again!” we both said. Someday I hope we will.

It’s weird having the same name as a local celebrity. Wouldn’t it be simpler to use my given name, Kathleen? Actually, on my Facebook account, I am Kathleen Wade, because I didn’t want the jazz world descending on me. But everywhere else I’m still Kathy Wade the writer.