The Cake Knife

Happy belated Mother's Day.

My children are at the age where they are beginning to leave the nest and I was feeling a bit sentimental this year, which is unusual for me. I wanted to post something special, but the words wouldn't come and time got away from me. Also, I was thinking about my own mother whom I haven't seen in a long time. She was a kooky gal and they never made Mother's Day cards to fit her. But there is no use telling you about my mother because you already know her. She is the culmination of almost every single Shirley Maclaine character you have ever seen.

Terms Of Endearment:
Opening scene, where Aurora climbs into the crib, pinches the baby to make certain it's breathing, then, reassured, walks away ... my mother. Every scene, including that final screaming at the nurses ... my mother.

Postcards From The Edge:
My mother was not an alcoholic, but I am certain Shirley was channeling my mother during this movie, the resemblance is uncanny.

Steel Magnolias:
Dear cranky, crabby, dog-loving Weezer - the embodiment of my mother. The author who wrote, I'm not crazy ... I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years, most certainly knew my mother.

Now take all these characters and add in some real life Shirley with a few UFOs and some ghosts, combine them, and put them all on a small, isolated, Kansas farm, and you've got my mother back in 1979 trying to throw a dinner party.

Never mind the fact that our house was a mess and Mother was a full-time registered nurse and didn't have the patience for cooking. For one day out of the year, mother wanted to entertain and be a traditional 1950's housewife and by gawd nothing was going to stop her.

The main rule in my mothers house was: if I am working, the rest of the world must be working, too. So early Saturday morning Mother began barking orders. Now most people, on the day of a dinner party, attend to last minute details like cooking, setting the table, tidying up. But my mother had delusions of grandeur, and tried to throw an entire years worth of interior decorating and household chores into one day. She shampooed carpets, moved pictures, rearranged the furniture, ordered my sister to wash the windows while I washed and ironed the curtains. We dusted, cleaned the woodwork, and hid the junk. With all this housework, it never occurred to us to plan a menu or grocery shop. We were so caught up in the cleaning process, that the food and dinner itself had become an afterthought.

Next came the staging. Mother severely wanted to impress this woman whom she had invited to the dinner party, but she wanted to give the illusion of a casual mess, of someone artistic, living in a big, seventies farm house, with a garden, and jars of jam cheerfully awaiting in the cupboard. So after our manic cleaning spree, I was ordered to drag out my plastic portable Singer sewing machine and place it on the table in the den along with an art book and my mother's Merck Manual - what that had to do with anything, I'll never know. Then my mother strategically placed potted plants all around the house while I scoured the kitchen cabinets for a set of matching, un-chipped dinner plates.

For a moment, all seemed well, but you must keep in mind that my mother was an irascible woman, and the longer we prepared for the guests, the more she began to resent them. So much to the point that she became angry with them: How dare they come to her house and make her do all this work, then expect a meal(!). It was going to be a bumpy night.

Dinner consisted of a haphazard roast cooked in a metal cake pan along with an iceberg lettuce salad, some Ott's dressing, canned vegetables, store bought rolls, and the guest was bringing dessert.

I don't remember much else about the evening, as I left as soon as the guests arrived. I couldn't bare to stay and watch my mother - a person more inclined to conversations on life or death matters, the Russian Revolution, and philosophy - make small talk. She was not good at small talk. It exhausted her. My role this particular evening was strictly service. I had cleaned and cooked, and given her a lifeboat, now it was up to her to row herself in. Mother had gotten herself into this mess, now it was up to her to get herself out.

One thing, however, that I do remember was the cake knife. Just before the sun went down, while the yard was still a solemn, shady green, a smiling, perfectly coiffed, unwary guest arrived bearing a tall, white, layered cake, and along with it she had the forethought to bring along a cake knife.

Now a cake knife seems like a benign thing, a trivial little piece of arsenal, but in this post nineteen-fifties world that my mother tried so desperately hard to fit into, it had become heavy artillery. This lady was big time. She owned a cake knife. In our world that meant organized, responsible, an outfitted kitchen. We were jealous. And I remember it well - serrated with fake ivory handle, elegant but efficient - even at the tender age of seventeen, I coveted this knife.

My mothers kitchen, on the other hand, was filled with the odds and ends of a person who seldom cooked, much less entertained: melted Tupperware lids, mismatched dishes, rusty cheese graters, pans with broken handles, and dish rags which where just that, rags. It never dawned on her to purchase something new for the kitchen.

And when this wide-eyed, gullible guest stepped up to my mothers porch that fateful summers eve, bearing a glorious cake and a cake knife to boot, I looked into my mothers eyes and saw defeat. This blatant, ordinary kitchen utensil had become a reflection upon all that was missing and all that had gone wrong in my mothers sad, domestic life.

It was a long time before we ate cake in our house again, and I never remember my mother throwing another dinner party.


Mother enjoyed a good chefs salad. And if I could, I would go back in time and prepare this salad for her dinner party. I found the Romaine lettuce, green onions, and even the cherry tomatoes at the farmers market. I topped it with fried chicken strips, homemade croutons, and Colby-jack cheese.





This salad dressing is a winner(!). I like to make it in a glass jar and store it in the refrigerator.

You may have noticed the spice container in the photo below. It's Target's Simply Organic dried basil.

I know, I know, I've committed a mortal sin. But I went to three different grocery stores and all of them were out of fresh basil. And I felt this was a vital component to the recipe, so I substituted. And you know what? It wasn't bad. When I initially opened the spice jar, I got a whiff of fresh basil scent. So in a pinch, I recommend this brand.

Icebox Buttermilk Dressing

adapted from Art Smith's Back To The Table

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup mayo

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon grainy mustard

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped rinsed capers

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano

1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil (or 1/2 teaspoon dried basil)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Salt and hot red pepper sauce, to taste

Place all ingredients in a jar and shake well to blend. (Keeps about a week in the fridge.)