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Jim Fabiano is a retired teacher and writer who lives in York.
Every morning it is my job to make the coffee before my wife joins me for breakfast and conversation. This has been a tradition in our marriage ever since it began more than 50 years ago. While I was getting the coffee ready recently, I noticed a large jar on the counter. It must have had a gallon capacity but was only a quarter filled with some kind of yellowish liquid. The liquid was brewing, its surface was covered with tiny bubbles.
My wife told me it was a starter cake. She told me she got the starter liquid from her sister. She explained that every time one made the cake mix they would have enough left to give to two other people who wanted to make their own Christmas cake. Then these people would make their cakes and have a couple of starter liquids to give to other people so the same cake starter would spread around our known universe.
I remember last holiday season when my sister-in-law made the cakes and brought some over for Christmas Eve. The cakes she brought were exceptional because they tasted fresh and were packed full of fruit and nuts. My wife loved them to the point of asking her sister if she could have a starter cake.
Staring into the contents of the gallon jug brewing on my kitchen counter I imagined where parts of our Christmas cake came from. My mind’s eye took me back to a time when avocado green was the color of choice in most of our nation’s kitchens. I watched a smiling young woman in a flowered apron and very high hair stirring her starter cake after adding pineapple, cherries and nuts. She must have known in a few short days she would be serving the most delicious of all the holiday cakes. But she was also staring into the bubbling gold colored liquid looking through her own mind’s eye imagining another time when the ancestors of her cake had reigned supreme.
The colors of this kitchen must have been black and white. The table and counters were made of wood. Even the spoon the young woman was using to stir the starter cake was made out of wood. She was wearing a bright white and stiffened apron hoping to produce what was promised to be the dessert of the Christmas season.
As she was watching the bubbling liquid move with her spoon she imagined what it must have been like for the person who gave her the start of her Christmas cake. The kitchen of her imagination was even darker than hers. The stove was coal fueled and the woman doing the stirring wore an open-collared, polka-dot house dress. This woman was stirring her Christmas cake but did not have the money to buy the pineapple, cherries and nuts that would flavor the cakes of her future. She used apples, peanuts, and even pieces of old bread to make her Christmas cake the best the hard times of her present could produce.
She also stared into the yellow liquid wondering if the woman of the house or her housekeepers stirred the magical yellow liquid like she was doing on that specific day. She imagined this house was much larger than hers and it was filled with not only the family but also an army of housekeepers and butlers to make the people of the house forever comfortable. A small woman wearing a black and white maid’s uniform was standing on a chair so as to be able to reach the top of the gallon jar that was laid on a large granite countertop. She stirred in every kind of fruit and nut available. She smiled as she stirred the magic liquid hoping this particular batch would make enough cakes to allow her and her colleagues the tiniest of taste.
On and on my mind feverously worked up these images as I watched the starter cake begin to effervesce. My mind’s eye then decided to dive into the future to where the starter cake was destined to go.
I now watched a young lady in a clean, austere, modern kitchen churning the yellow liquid. She had two young children playing at her feet. Focusing on this young woman’s face it appeared to be a combination of my wife and me.
She turned the yellow liquid over and over until it combined with the dried packages of fruit that were supposed to be made especially for the most modern of Christmas cakes. As she looked down at her children, she started to imagine how her daughter and maybe even her son would produce their own Christmas cake from the magical yellow starter fluid.
Before my mind was able to go ahead to future generations and imagine a kitchen filled with things I don’t have the capacity to envision, I smiled knowing the leftovers of this Christmas cake were destined to brighten the holidays of many generations to come.
