Posted on July 5, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Three Teared Cake?

 

 

Iona.

Just uttering the word evokes a powerful image of the bucolic village, nestled in the interior of Cape Breton Island, overlooking the Barramen’s Strait on the Bras d’Or Lake.   The community is steeped in history.  The Highland Village is the centerpiece of the community, perched atop a very steep hill amidst breathtaking scenery.  The place oozes history and authenticity.

When I think of Iona, one word creeps into my consciousness.  Terror.

Several years ago, our daughter, her husband and their infant daughter lived with us while he completed a degree at St. F.X.  Ellie is a world class pastry chef.  In the wink of an eye she turned our basement into a bakery from which emerged all manner of delicious and expertly decorated confections.  For some strange, yet undetermined reason, I became her helper.  I would routinely roll up my sleeves for the dishes during the week and escort her to the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.  Her cupcakes were legendary.

That first summer she developed a sidearm of the business; the uncertain and oft times stressful world of wedding cakes.

An order came in for a triple layer wedding cake to be delivered to Iona.  I checked on a trip calculator that indicated a distance of 128 kilometers (80 miles for our friends in the U.S.), with a travel time of one hour and forty four minutes.  My suspicion is that this calculation is based on ideal conditions.  Believe me; delivering a wedding cake is not “ideal conditions” under any circumstance.

Over the summer, after trial and error, we had developed a way to transport our precious cargo.  We used an old wooden slab that used to be the top of our dishwasher, leveled and secured in the back seat of the Camry.  Ellie would sit beside the cake to make sure it didn’t slide.  Final assembly would occur at our destination.

The cake was a masterpiece.  The finishing touches were applied on Friday evening.  Saturday turned out to be the hottest day of the summer.  New record high temperatures were set all over the province.   When we went to get the cake out of the fridge we noticed that the fondant was weeping ever so slightly.  The cake looked like it was crying.  There was at least one other person on the verge of tears.

We managed to get the cake into the car, the first of two delicate lifts that day.  I wasn’t this nervous on my own wedding day.  “Turn the air conditioning on high,” directed the steely voice from the back seat.  I tilted my chauffeur’s hat ever so slightly and off we went.

Normally, the fan for the air conditioner in one’s car rarely goes above one.  The dial was cranked up to the maximum and by the time we hit the Causeway, I was damned near frozen.  This white knuckle drive was precipitated not by anxiety, but from the frost forming on my fingers.  We made our way safely to the turnoff to highway 223.  I noticed that the pavement wasn’t quite as smooth as on the Trans-Canada Highway.  We got on the cable ferry for the short passage at Grand Narrows.  The cake was still in one piece.  Well, three pieces, technically.

Although this was in the middle of summer, highway 223 seemed to be more like the roads one sees just after the frost has come out of the ground in the spring time.  Despite the ice box that we were driving in, I started to perspire as I carefully negotiated every bump in the road.  And there were plenty of them.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we reached the Highland Village, where the wedding was to take place.  Grown men are not supposed to weep but after more than two hours of tense driving, I faced the steepest hill I had ever seen, with the huge white wedding tent perched at the top of it.  To come all this way and face the prospect of the cake sliding into the Bras d’Or was almost too much to contemplate.

With the dexterity of a magician, Ellie managed to keep the cake in an upright position all the way up the hill.

The drive home was uneventful, and I turned off the air conditioning to feel the warm summer breeze as it thawed out my hands.  When we arrived home, we were met at the door by my wife, grandchild on her hip.  “How did it go?”

“Piece of cake” I replied.

I curled up in the hammock on our verandah and dreamed of the bride and groom on at their Highland wedding banquet.

 

Posted on July 3, 2014 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

181 Days of Gratitude

 

 

This is what 181 days of gratitude looks like.  Every single day since Jan.1^st. of this year, I have taken a few moments to write something that happened that day for which I was grateful. It could be as simple as putting my feet on the floor in the morning to scarfing down a piece of M.F.’s world class lemon meringue pie.  What are you grateful for today?

It was a terrific long weekend with warm, sunny days. Great weather for the beach, the pool and for Canada Day festivities.  And speaking of Canada Day, we had to take a pass on the pancake breakfast that morning. We would have loved to have gone to the Legion and hoed in to some pancakes topped with maple syrup. And why weren’t we able to drag our sorry asses down to Main Street? Because we had a house showing at noon on July 1^st.! We found out the day before and had to roll up our sleeves early on Canada Day to get the house ready.

In story telling, you need to have what is known as “context.” In other words, sometimes you need a little backgrounder in order to understand the story. To truly appreciate the subtleties of the next story, please go back and read “Hide and Seek.” If you’re not familiar with my sight, just go to the home page and enter the title in the search bar.

I was up at my usual time ( 5:30 ish ) and started my part of the staging “drill” by cleaning the kitchen and hiding everything. By the time my wife and granddaughter got up, I was ready to start the vacuuming. Only one minor problem. We couldn’t find the vacuum cleaner. I can understand misplacing a ring or even a cell phone but a vacuum cleaner? We looked everywhere and I mean everywhere. I even private messaged a painter who had been doing some work at our house.

We like this particular model as it is a “stick model.” It is light weight and easy to manoeuver. We have an older model which is big and clunky. I was just about to start in with the older model when I heard a giggle from upstairs followed by Betty’s tell tale hysterical laugh. I must leave you in suspense until the story gets published next week. Please feel free to guess all you want. The story is called “ Taken to the Cleaners” and will appear next week. Might even be a Casket story.

This Saturday, I will be publishing a story that appeared in last week’s Cape Breton Star called “ No Cake Walk.” It’s the tale of a trip I took to Iona a few years ago to deliver a three tiered wedding cake. When I look back, I think that was when my hair officially started falling out.

The rabbit story is in the final edit stage. “ A Hare Raising Experience” is Phoebe’s story and how she passed through a few set of owners before settling in with the current owners who keep the rabbit ( wait for this )…. in the bathroom.

It’s shaping up to be a nasty weekend but should be excellent story writing weather.

Have a great weekend and best of luck to Candace on her wedding day. Betty and I were married the day after a hurricane. We survived that storm ( and a few others along the way! ).

Posted on July 1, 2014 under News & Updates with 2 comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAPPY CANADA DAY FROM WEEK45