Sprung At Last

Applesauce Cake

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I’m totally hooked on my vintage cookbooks, and am slowly working my way through my 1931 New Cake Secrets. Everything in it is so simple and comforting. It all gets eaten. The ingredients are things that are found in a standard pantry like mine.

Also, it all kind of tastes like the MidWest – which is to say, it reminds me of the stuff my grandma used to make.

Pretty sure I’m going to need a diet cookbook soon, but I’m okay with it. I wonder how ladies dieted in the 1930’s? Hmmm…

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Apple Sauce Cake
adapted from 1931 edition of New Cake Secrets
1 3/4 cups Swansdown Cake Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup raisins or currants
1 cup nuts (I used walnuts)
1 cup applesauce

sift dry ingredients together three times.
Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add egg, raisins or currants, and chopped nuts. Add flour in small amounts, alternating with applesauce. Beat after each addition until smooth. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.

I ended up baking the cake about ten extra minutes. It’s done when the top springs back to the touch.

The cake is very sweet, with a wonderful apple pie flavor. It’s very moist. Served warm, it would be a great base for vanilla ice cream and maybe a drizzle of caramel. Chunky applesauce or shredded apples would be a nice addition.

This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other simple pleasures await?

The Dam Bursts

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I’m still waiting, waiting, waiting for a response.

No, says the lawyer’s office, all we can do is ask. We cannot force them to mediate.

And if they will not mediate, we go to trial.

And the cost of a trial will ruin me.

And then. And then.

I keep reminding myself, a trial will ruin him too. He has nothing to gain from a trial and everything to lose – same as me.

But he’s had nothing to gain from all the legal maneuvers he’s pulled so far, and he ran up the bills anyway. His own bills mostly, but mine too – needlessly.

I start crying to the paralegal on the phone. I go from weeping to raging to apologizing for making her sit through this, and she just says, no, no, I understand.

I try to go a couple of days without calling, and last for two.

Have we had nothing yet? I ask. Still no reply?

She’s confused. Didn’t you get my email?

No, obviously not.

They signed, she said.

There will be no trial.

And so it was that 9 months after he departed, I got a gift: The damage would be controlled.

The end is finally, mercifully near.

Things I Wish I Could Say That I Actually Did Say: Mr. Unusual from Match.Com

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After I posted about Mr. Unusual’s astonishing* return to match.com, I was (actually) surprised to receive an email from one of my readers in response.

Calling Bullshit, she said, is reason enough to email him.

So I did: I forwarded my match.com email with his shiny new profile picture listed under my new matches, and added the comment:

Guess it didn’t work out with “the ex.” Best of luck.

He replied six minutes later:

Very close, but it did not.  I am still sad about it and probably should wait until January to start over. . .

He actually wrote that:  “…”

If you look closely, you can see the bullets I think I dodged.

No, I didn’t reply.

Yes, I have a sneaking feeling I haven’t heard the last of him.

 

*Yes, that was sarcasm.

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