Leftover cake counts as a whole meal

I stopped in Marion Walmart on the Wednesday before Valentine’s Day to grab several pounds of strawberries. A woman beside me was doing the same. “Are you a caterer?” she inquired. I snorted. “No! I’m helping to put on a wedding reception Saturday. When I started planning this thing, I thought, ‘This is fun! I could be a caterer!’ But now that I’m in the throes of the work, I’ve decided this is not the life for me!”

She smiled. “I’m a caterer,” she said, softly.

I congratulated her and slinked off, not knowing what else to say. Turns out, I probably should have hired her!

I experienced the conflicting emotions this weekend of sheer delight celebrating love and all the beauty that accompanies a wedding along with extreme fatigue that curled up around me and squeezed me tightly for days.

When rumors began that the happy couple didn’t want a reception, I, operating under the assumption that they would have a short afternoon ceremony, naively said, “Please at least let me throw you a cake and punch reception so we can all enjoy celebrating your day together!”

What began in my mind as wedding cake and punch for 50 blossomed into a lunch reception for 120, much to my surprise and wide-eyed hesitation.

But I’m a go-getter.

At least I used to be, before motherhood made me just a wilted flower of perpetual exhaustion.

The grandmother of the bride and I teamed up to plan, purchase, and prepare the wedding and reception decorations and food. Unfortunately, the grandmother wanted finger foods, which actually take a lot more time to prepare than a whole tray of pasta, for example, or a delicious southern casserole.

Additionally, the grandmother had seen a friend of hers create centerpieces from whole cakes, with each table at the reception hosting a different flavor of cake. The friend of hers was a baker by trade, which neither of us are, but that didn’t stop her from charging ahead!

First order of business: thanks to Facebook Marketplace and many trips to thrift stores, I am now the proud owner of 10 cake pedestals, which I have no idea where to store.

Second, find someone to bake the cakes.

Now here’s the thing. The home I grew up in was a “Storebought cake” home. If you had to have a homemade birthday cake, we all took pity on you! But my husband grew up in a “Homemade cake” home, and his family definitely pitied the poor child whose mother only had time to pick up a custom cake from the store and not to create her own masterpiece of love for the birthday child.

So when the grandmother started hinting at finding someone to bake cakes, I could have offered. I’m quite talented at following recipes and certainly know my way around a mixer. But there is no way I was volunteering to donate my time and energy, just to set myself up to hear things like, “That’s not as good as Nora Lou’s,” or “That has too much butter.” (Too much butter? Does. not. compute!)

Not to mention the sage piece of advice I received a long time ago: Never take an untested recipe to an event.

Since I’m a storebought kind of gal, I haven’t tested many cake recipes the way the other side of the family has. Much to the chagrin of my teenagers, I certainly didn’t want to have fifteen test cakes lying around the house in the month leading up to the reception!

We ended up with plenty. We made take-home boxes that said, “Have some cake and take some, too,” and everyone happily obliged!

For my part, I provided plenty of fruits and vegetables, as well as spanakopita, meatballs, and brie pastries, all of which were cooked ahead of time and simply had to be warmed up the day of the reception.

I started the meatballs in the oven overnight. When I awoke in the morning, I found two more bags of frozen meatballs.

“Ah,” I thought to myself, “No wonder I had so much extra sauce!”

It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine. I threw those meatballs in the crockpot with the plan to bring them out at the end of the reception to give them enough time to cook.

Then I set about cooking the spanakopita. Very easy instructions. Place on cookie sheet. Cook at 375 for 20 minutes.

Well I had 8 cookie sheets and three racks, so I had planned to take shifts.

Except I accidentally turned off my oven.

I have been using the same oven in this kitchen for 14 years, and when the timer beeped, instead of simply turning the timer off, I turned the whole oven off.

Talk about a facepalm moment. I left the house that morning praising the Lord that I had not offered to make any cakes because I had just screwed up the absolutely simplest baking tasks!

I recruited my daughter to help set out the fruits in a lovely pattern, and she did not disappoint, but I simply assumed all my seven children would stick around to help strike and load things back in the cars after the event.

When I emerged from the bathroom in my sweats and sneakers, the whole lot of them had disappeared.

I tell you what. Give them wings and watch them fly… right away from all the hard work! They all had valid excuses, but goodness the workload took me out.

At home, I limply crawled up the stairs to my bed, leaving the sink full of dirty crystal trays and bowls, where they sat for a full 36 hours.

The good news is, we had plenty of leftovers to feed the family while I recovered, and yes, leftover cake absolutely counted as a whole meal.

Too much butter or not.

Dorothy Wilson lives in Marion, Arkansas, with her husband Chris as they enjoy all of the adventures life with their seven children provides (where everything is a group project). Contact her at iam4life@msn.com.

Dorothy Wilson

The Marion Mom