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Cooking today
Bundt pan, Poppy Seed Cake brings back memories of days gone by
Monday, January 14, 2008
I was thumbing through a magazine and stopped at a piece titled "Starting the New Year right."
I didn't make any resolutions this year, but it's never too late to do what a magazine says you should do. I decided to pick and choose through the list:
Extras
Prepare tax information: pass. Change your passwords: pass. Make medical appointments for the year: pass. Clean out your kitchen cabinets. OK, I can do that.
The magazine said to throw away scratched or rusted nonstick pans. I had several old, rusty baking pans that I wouldn't use on a bet, so out they went. Then I came across my Bundt pan.
It wasn't scratched or rusted, but I hadn't used it in years. Still, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. It reminded me of Poppy Seed Cake, a sweet, easy dessert my grandma used to make for my grandfather.
My grandfather had converted their garage to a home-improvement store, so he was never far from the kitchen. This was not always a good thing. He insisted on bacon and eggs every morning; ice tea, cole slaw or macaroni salad and a sandwich for lunch; meat and potatoes for dinner; and a different dessert every night.
When Grandma looked out the window and saw him heading down the walk, she shifted into overdrive to have everything in place when he walked through the door. If he had to wait for anything, he would be quite vocal in his displeasure. And she would apologize.
It infuriated my mother, to see her mother wait on him hand and foot.
He believed a woman's place was in the home. And my grandma believed it, too, because he told her it was so.
When my grandma's sister, well into middle age, decided to learn to drive, my grandfather was livid.
"Women have no business behind the wheel," he said.
My mother saw things differently, and pestered him to teach her to drive long after her two brothers had been given the same privilege.
One day he relented. She eagerly followed him into his 1940s-era work truck — standard transmission, no power steering or power brakes. The seating position was fixed, and there was no way she —at 5 feet, 1 inch — would have been able to reach the pedals.
He drove out of town, parked on a steep hill, engaged the emergency brake and turned off the engine.
"You want to drive?" he challenged her. "OK. Drive."
He was mean, my
grandfather.
She did drive, but not until several years later, when she was out on her own.
But I think my grandma was happy with her life, and just because she had to prepare fresh meals every day didn't mean she couldn't take shortcuts.
Like this Poppy Seed Cake. It starts with a yellow cake mix. You can throw the ingredients together in a few minutes and pop it in the oven. Because my mother would kill me if she thought I spent the entire day in the kitchen, waiting on people hand and foot.
POPPY SEED CAKE
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/2 cup white sugar
4 eggs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and sugar a 10-inch Bundt pan.
In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, sour cream, poppy seeds and sugar. Mix until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Contact this writer at carol.rini@gmail.com
