Inklings: Just Desserts | Columnists | Summerville Journal Scene

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Inklings: Just Desserts

Published Thursday, April 08, 2010 2:04 PM

By Barbara Lynch Hill
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Ever know anybody who fibbed about a recipe? I once shared standard layered salad ingredients with a newcomer. She praised the concoction, to which I’d added a couple of unusual items. Later I was a guest in her home. She served “my” salad.

A tablemate, full of admiration, asked for the recipe. I lowered my eyes and practiced appearing modest in the light of the accolades about to be heaped upon my head. The hostess looked the other guest straight in the eye and proclaimed, “This is an old family recipe I’ve tweaked over the years. I promised mama I’d never give it out!” So much for my blushes!

Lying about a recipe can be murderous. At least in fiction. For instance, M.C. Beaton has her detective Agatha Raisin pass off a chef-made egg pie as her own in the mystery “The Quiche of Death.” Agatha, whose culinary skills generally run to heating up microwave curries, wins a local contest and basks in glory until the poor fellow whose wife takes the quiche home, dies of poisoning after sampling it. Agatha, as is her wont, gets both her man and her comeuppance by the last chapter. Her English Cotswolds village never forgets her detective skills, or the fact that she lied about that quiche.

We can only hope for the same justice in the following tale entitled “The White-Lie Cake,” sent by my anonymous e-mail buddy, High Flyer. It’s been edited for space.

Alice agreed to make a cake for her small town ladies’ group but forgot until the last minute. The morning of the bake sale she used an angel food cake mix. The center dropped flat and there was no time to bake another. Alice badly wanted to fit in with her new community of friends, so this cake was important. She looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake, finding it in the bathroom - a roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in, covering it with icing. It looked perfect. Before she left to drop the cake off and head for work, Alice gave her daughter money and strict instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened, buy the cake and bring it home.

The cake had been sold early! Alice was horrified. Everyone would know! What would they think? She would be ostracized, talked about, ridiculed! She tried not to dwell on that cake and planned to attend a fancy luncheon/bridal shower with her group the next day. She didn’t really want to go because the hostess was snobbish and more than once had looked down her nose at the fact that Alice was a single parent and was “from off.” But she had accepted the invitation and felt obligated. The meal was elegant; the company top drawer. Then to Alice's horror, the cake in question was presented for dessert!

She started to tell the hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!" Alice leaned back in her chair when she heard the hostess, a prominent citizen reply "Oh, thank you so very much, I baked it myself."

Alice smiled and thought, "God is good."

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