Laugh? Cry? Both?

Life has many ironic moments.  Last Friday evening presented one for me.  Just that day I had finished reading:  Don’t Try This at Home edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman.  Each of the thirty-three chapters is written by one of world’s various and finest chefs about the times with things did NOT go according to plan.  Many of these chapters had me laughing out loud. 

                        Friday afternoon I spent a bit of time baking a cake with royal icing as a present for a couple who had just celebrated thirty-three years of marriage.   I’d found a recipe for White Velvet Cake and it seemed like a great cake to use for a wedding anniversary.  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Velvet-Cake-I/Detail.aspx  I substituted royal icing for the coconut icing.  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Royal-Icing-III/Detail.aspx  I didn’t have a box, so the cake was put into my cake carrier. 

                        Now the cake carrier had lost two of it clips—which left two clips to hold the top onto the base.  Although the carrier has handles on the top, I never trust the carrier to hold together, always picking the carrier up by the base to take it with me. 

                        Through out the afternoon I kept thinking about the food catastrophes written about in the book.  Thankfully, the cake turned out very well, so I was relieved and pleased. 

                        Midnight Man and I were going out to attend our Hillsong Connect group.  The cake was for the couple giving us a lift to the meeting.  Our contribution to the meal was a loaf of bread. 

                        “Which do you want to carry—the cake or the bread?”  I ask My Midnight Man as I was putting on my coat. 

                        “How about you just lock the door?”  MMM says as he comes into the hall. 

                        Plop!  I looked down.  The white cake laid bottom up, white royal icing with cocoa nut sprinkles spattered on the black carpet. 

                        Tiredness and disappointed burst out from me in the form of crying—but I had no tears.  My gift was ruined.  It was only a cake.  But my surprise for my friends had been made defunct.  I knew I would eventually be able to laugh about it...but not at that particular moment. 

                        “I’m so sorry, My Darling.”  My Midnight Man says, shell-shocked by the sweet offering resting without dignity on the floor.  “I’m so sorry.  I really am.”  This became his ten-minute litany. 

        “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”  I say.  “Let me clean it up.”  I went to the kitchen for two spatulas.  The cake had held its shape, in part because of the royal icing.  Using both turners, I lifted the cake from the carpet, placed it back on its plate and took it to the kitchen.  The icing on the top had come off, so at least MMM and I could eat the cake.  I vacuumed up the shredded cocoa nut and MMM cleaned the carpet with clear water.  That’s all we had time to do.

        The plan is to make a second cake for our friends.  My Midnight Man and I have enjoyed the cake—so it wasn’t wasted. 

        I am not a superstitious person.  But I just couldn’t get past the irony that the very day I had finished reading a book about kitchen catastrophes was the same day that anniversary cake ended up on the floor!