Let Her Eat Cake!

I started a new job this week, and on my first day my co-workers greeted me with a tempting batch of store-bought cupcakes. As the plastic container was politely thrust in my direction, my initial impulse was to save the drama, and just eat the thing. After all, a new job is a celebration of sorts, and if my co-workers felt cause to welcome me by proffering baked goods, who was I to say no? Isn't it considered rude to turn down food? Especially food that has been bought in your honor? It would have definitely been easier to just indulge, but instead I decided to spill the beans and tell a bunch of people I just met all about our Alabama eating adventure.

They humored me, and responded with the usual "Well, that's just more for us", and proceeded to carry on without me, as well they should. There were chocolate, yellow, and white cake varieties, all topped with brightly-colored icing. I thought about my two month hiatus from baked goods. I felt a little twinge of envy, as I watched them eat, carefully peeling back paper wrappers to reveal moist cake, taking one bite, and then another, until all that was left were bits of hot-pink icing on their finger tips. Our inability to secure grains has really taken a toll on one of my greatest joys in life: dessert.

Perhaps, what I really missed was not the physical act of eating and enjoying the taste of a cupcake, but rather the idea of sharing this food with my immediate community. What this and so many other of our similar social food encounters is teaching us, or perhaps reaffirming, is the fact that food for us is communal. We take great pleasure in breaking bread with our friends and family. It's difficult when we have to forgo that luxury. Even if it is just one little get-to-know-you cupcake between officemates.

Comments

[kate]

You know you can make sweets with cornmeal and regular flour, and you can get those from McEwin and Sons. They are at the Pepperplace farmers Market every Saturday. Surely you can get a hold of them during the week...

My dad used to make little corn cakes ("hoe cakes") in a skillet with nothing more than cornmeal, water, veg oil and salt. Maybe there was some egg or baking powder, but I don't remember for sure. They are cooked in a heavy cast iron skillet with some oil. If you put honey on that, it is a simple, delicious treat.

[Andrew Beck Grace]

Thanks Kate - we've been making a lot of hoe cakes in the Grace household! Unfortunately, the McEwen's get their corn and their flour from the west - I believe they said Montana last we spoke with them. It's not for lack of trying, it's just that they want organic grains and no one grows organics grains in Alabama. They grind it all in Wilsonville, but the grain itself comes from elsewhere.