Birthday Cake

Birthday Cake:

The boy is four years old now. We were moving during his birthday, so the celebration was postponed until tonight. My mother, his grandmother, made him a birthday cake.

I haven't said much about my mother (here and here are the only times I recall), but you probably know that Southern women are polite and sweet, yet stern and iron-willed.

My mother is all those things, and also rather assertive on the question of health food. This is a departure from when I was a boy; in those days, she hardly cooked at all. I left home knowing how to make everything from pancakes to lasagna from scratch. At our house, if you wanted to eat it, you'd better know how to cook it. At some point, though, she decided that she wanted to eat right and have better health, and naturally therefore she accomplished both goals. Nothing in her house is low-fiber, full-fat, or otherwise potentially unhealthy.

Which brings us to the birthday cake.

I swear this is true: his grandmother made him a prune-bran birthday cake.

She really did.