Cake for the guys

I know I said I was going to try to write something every day, but time is at a premium today.

Yesterday my winter warmth was delivered. Two cords of mostly fir with some cedar and arbutus thrown in.

Today, with the much appreciated assistance of three manly men, the wood is getting shifted into the shed. Two of the original manly men (Dave and Joe), plus newly minted manly man Ray, who starred as Ali Baba in the panto I directed last year.

I may have already shared this. It’s so funny it would be hard to believe I haven’t, but, just in case, here’s the scene in which Ray (and his legs) completely stole the show.

On opening night, when I was mingling with the audience after the performance, an older gentleman told me this scene/song was the funniest thing he’d ever seen on stage during a long lifetime of theatre going. Tears of laughter returned to him just thinking about it.

Anyway, anyway…

In return for their manly assistance, I have promised to bake one of my famous chocolate cakes.

I would like to take the opportunity here to thank my friend Jane, who, back in the nineties, owned a lovely independent book store, conveniently situated halfway between my home and the Greenpeace office where I was then working. Not surprisingly, I would often drop in on her when I was walking home. One evening I went in with a particular mission. I wanted to reduce the amount of meat Mike and I were eating, but had a limited repertoire of vegetarian dishes and no great love of lentils. “I need,” I told Jane (a vegan), “a vegetarian cookbook in which nowhere will I find the words ‘Three days before, start soaking beans’.” She told me she knew exactly what I wanted and handed me a copy of Moosewood Cooks at Home.

I have made and very much enjoyed many of the dishes in that cookbook over the years, but none more than the recipe for Six-Minute Chocolate cake. It is the most delicious chocolate cake with the added bonus for not-much-of-a-baker me that it is incredibly easy. The added bonus for Jane is that it is a vegan recipe. (The secret, believe it or not, is vinegar.)

The first time I got involved in a production with the local community theatre group, I baked one of these cakes for the after party. I did the same for the second after party. For the third I decided to do something different, so I made some sundried tomato humus and some guacamole. When I walked in the door, pretty much everyone said, “Where’s the cake?” Since then I’ve never had to think about what to make for an after party. I always make the chocolate cake. It is legendary. So, thank you, Jane, for handing me that copy of the Moosewood cookbook.

Hardly a surprise that the manly men wanted that cake as their reward. It’s just come out of the oven and now I need to make the glaze (which pretty much consists of a pound of melted dark chocolate).

I plan to keep them out on the deck for tea and cake, but, on the off chance that one of them wanders indoors for some reason, I also need to do a fair bit of tidying up. No visitors for some months. Things have got a bit slack.