When there's chocolate cake in the house, does it matter who
bought it or that it isn't for you? No. It does not matter one little bit. If
you bring cake into this house, you have brought it in at the risk of not having
it there when you return. If the cake exists, it is quite safe to assume that,
even if you put your name on it, someone else is going to eat that cake. It
doesn't even matter if it is your birthday cake. It will be eaten.
There is a woman living here. A woman of a certain age who
adores chocolate more than just about anything else there is on the earth to
adore. And, when you put that chocolate into cake form, well, it's doomed from
the git-go. There is no such thing as a chocolate cake repellent nor is there
such a thing as willpower when it comes to chocolate cake. Especially when there's a man living in the
same house who has, in his aging years, become worse than he already was in the
areas of manipulation, meanness, forgetfulness and grossness. I kid you not.
And then there's the daughter who moved back home for 'just
one year,' 15 months ago.
It's not that I mind one of the
kids moving back into the house. But did it have to be one of the messiest
ones? Was it not bad enough that I have Fred Sanford living here already?
My side yard looks like a salvage
yard. I can understand some people who collect junk. I really can. Because they
re-purpose the junk. The stuff that sits in my yard and the storage tent in the
back yard does just that, sits. For years. Decades. I've gotten Fred confine to
what was once the garage. It was turned into a playroom when the girls were
growing up to give them more room for play and socializing. That area looks
worse than the outside. I would take a picture but, some of it, is actually
embarrassing. I don't even want to admit that I know someone who does some of
the things Fred does. Dis. Gust. Ing. Fred has lost every single key to my car
except one. He has lost his cell phones and four house keys. The list goes on
but I believe y'all get the point.
And then there's the room where
the daughter who moved back in resides. I had just gotten that room turned into
a guest room. It was so pretty. See?
But no more. Everything she owns is strewn all over the
floor and walls and ceiling. The drawers (of the furniture I painted) are all
hanging open and, from the places she puts her takeout food and drinks, let's
just say I'll be repainting that furniture when...IF...she moves back out. Trash
gets emptied once every couple of months and I have only been able to get in
there to vacuum the rug and steam the floor twice since she's been here. She's
supposed to keep it neat, tidy, clean in there in lieu of paying rent. Right.
I'm not saying that I'm the neatest person in the world. But
I do put things in their places. Nothing of mine is strewn about haphazardly.
And nasty? No. I don't leave food out and I don't drop food on the floor while
I'm eating. I wash up after myself (and everyone else, I guess that's my job)
and my room is tidy. And I don't use empty water jugs for anything other than recycling
and mixing up food for my flower garden.
It is quite difficult for someone who appreciates
neat/tidy/clean to live with two adults who wouldn't recognize order and clean
if they saw it (I know this because they see it every day when they walk
through the front door.)
Not that I'm going to always post recipes but this just sort of happened. Again. Ha!
My grandmother didn't have a chocolate cake that I recall. Though I do recall her pineapple and her coconut cakes, vividly. But, when I was a teenager, she started making this coco cola cake and it was scrumptious! Healthy? Nope. But scrumptious! :)
Coco Cola Cake
2 cups sugar 1/2
cup buttermilk
2 cups plain flour 1
tsp soda
1/2 cup butter 2
eggs
1/2 cup oil 1
tsp vanilla
3 T cocoa 1/2
cup miniature marshmallows
Stir soda in
buttermilk; set aside. Sift sugar and
flour. Combine butter, oil, cocoa, and
coco-cola
in a small
sauce pan. Bring to boil, pour over dry
mixture; mix. To mixture, add buttermilk
and
soda, eggs,
vanilla, and marshmallows, mix. Pour
into a well greased and floured 13x9x2 inch
pan (wax paper
in the bottom of pan works). Bake 45
minutes at 350 degrees.
Icing
1/2 cup butter 1
box powdered sugar
3 T cocoa 1
cup chopped nuts
6 T coco-cola 1
tsp vanilla
Combine butter,
cocoa, coco-cola in sauce pan. Bring to
a boil (longer for thicker icing).
Remove from
heat, add powdered sugar, vanilla, and nuts.
Mix well, spread over cake (top and
sides)
Have you ever noticed how venting is just as good as eating chocolate cake? Me neither.
