Cherries, Cake and Cheer

Quite recently, Alisa and I made a pact to do a better job of celebrating our ‘wins’ – between you and me, she’s particularly bad at acknowledging her successes when they roll in.

Cake, we decided, was the universal currency of yay.

So this morning, when it was announced by @capclave that my story “The Patrician” had won the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award, we declared on Twitter that it was Cake Day! I have to say it was downright patriotic and noble the way that so many of my friends leapt to support the radical concept that cake should be eaten.

Cake has been much on my mind lately. I bought Jane Brocket’s Vintage Cakes and delighted in the pretty, old fashioned cakes in the books, even as I despaired over my daughter Raeli’s reaction to them – nearly every other cake had fruit or cream or both, or jam, or all three, and she heartily disapproves of all of these things in cakes.

But oh, I have been feeling so inclined towards the concept of damp, almondy cherry cake… thus it was that I declared today’s cake an independence cake. I would be allowed to bake it myself, without the assistance of my children (I’m so MEAN) and I would make the kind I wanted to make, again without interference from the peanut gallery. I would let them decorate it, as a compromise. Though I was secretly planning to give them only colour-co-ordinated things with which to do so. Because, have I mentioned? So mean!

It came late in the day, but while the children bathed themselves (hooray for big girls!) I made a butter cake with sour cream and oranges and ground almonds and okay, not a lot of butter. I was thwarted by my honey who recoiled in horror at the glace cherries I had bought, and begged me not to use them. I AM NOT THE MEANEST PERSON IN THE HOUSE!

I made orange cream frosting with sneaky cream cheese (Raeli claimed she didn’t like cream cheese frosting last time) and gave them Maltesers to decorate it with after dinner, because there was no way that wouldn’t look good. But Jem was one ahead of me, insisting that she let me put cherries on top. So lo and behold, there was use for the cherries after all, scattered among the Maltesers so that people who like cherries (me) could have them and people who don’t (everyone else including Jem apparently!) could have slices without.

This seemed fortuitous, because Alisa announced tonight that the wonderful Amanda Rainey has finalised the cover for the first “Livia Day” novel, A Trifle Dead. And there it was, the reason that I might well have had cherries on the brain lately. A whole new chapter for me opening up, as a crime writer!

If only I had some cake or something to celebrate this momentous occasion. Oh, wait.

I am glad I do not live in a world where I have to choose between books and cake. This one looks good enough to eat, blood stains and all!