When I was nine, I got food poisoning after eating my mother’s attempt at a chicken parmesan over spaghetti. It was a gruesome sight. Little me, bent over the toilet seat retching chunks of undercooked chicken and bright-red Marinara sauce. My older brother, laughing his ass off somewhere downstairs, relishing in my momentary misery. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sister, biting off her fingers while simultaneously having a panic attack under the white sheets of her comforter, probably convincing herself that she was going to get terminal cancer from the cross-contaminated food.
When Gwynedd Square Elementary School had its annual bake sale, I volunteered to make homemade brownies. Translation: I volunteered for my dad to bake brownies. Fate had other plans because that was the week he got the flu from the Pearsons’ kid from next door. Snotty Ollie–as we named him–must have used his hands as tissues before handing the bag of Chocolatey Caramel Crunch Popcorn to my dad. “I’m never buying from those damn boy scouts ever again,” I remember him saying as he shook his clammy head. I didn't feel bad for him, though, because his incapacitation meant the brownie-making responsibility fell into my mother’s inexperienced hands. Even box mix wouldn’t prevent the disaster that would occur seven hours later in the kitchen. I didn’t even know brownie batter could splatter, yet it apparently can.
When my mother complimented my Aunt Marites on the Mac and Cheese that she had brought for family Thanksgiving in 2018, she offhandedly mentioned that it was a new online recipe, and my mother simply had to try to make it. Although nothing tragic occurred from this cooking attempt, there was something about it that was just…off. To my perfectionist mother, the cheese was a little too stringy, the noodles a degree too overcooked, and the paprika a shade too heavy.
It’s probably inferable at this point, but without a doubt, it is known that Peggy Valdivia can’t cook or bake for shit. As a workaholic accountant, she has no need to learn the intricacies of how to use the oven properly or what the difference is between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. Her entire life is surrounded by numbers–not sugar and flour. My dad is our family’s designated cook. He majored in Food Science at Penn State University and knows how to make pretty much anything. From tacos to Adobo (a Filipino chicken dish that is to die for), he’s got it down. Therefore, everyone has simply accepted my mom’s cursed cooking.
Just like we know the sky is blue or that the grass is green, we know that Peggy is most certainly not a chef.
I don’t know if it was a glitch in the system or an aberration of sorts, but it is also known that my mother is the only person who can make the most delicious, fluffy, and rich chocolate cake to ever exist. How that is possible, you might ask? Well, my family has spent twenty-three years trying to figure that out and have come up with no viable answer other than it must be magic.
The recipe was handed down to my mother in ‘02 from Grandma Saldutti. She was my half-siblings’ dad’s mother (confusing, I know) with a delicate voice that never wavered. Starting with a list of ingredients and their measurements at the top, it came written in her handwriting that she claimed was “cursive” but really was just messy. Towards the middle and bottom of the page were step-by-step instructions on how to craft the glorious cake. The lined paper, I imagine, used to be white, yet with years of vanilla extract spillings and batter splatterings, the once crisp sheet has turned brown with age but stained with love.
The cake itself is cooked in a giant donut-shaped cake pan and is topped with the most mouth-watering cream cheese frosting you’ll ever eat. Every year, me and my siblings beg my mom to "accidentally" make extra frosting, so we can lick the leftovers before she washes the bowl. She adds the same festive red and green crystallized sugar jimmies that she uses every year. I’m not sure why, but those sprinkles–devoid of taste–somehow make the cake taste better.
Usually, the cake is only made once–maybe twice–a year. Always for Thanksgiving and potentially for someone’s birthday, but only if she has enough time to make it with her busy job schedule. You might have to bribe her with a neck message or five to get that hard-earned yes, but boy it is worth it. Despite my mom’s usual record with making food, the chocolate cake is a delicacy in the Valdivia family. It’s the one time Peggy can produce not only edible but spectacular food.
When I graduated high school, my mom made the cake for my graduation party. I still remember the faces of my friends as they dug into their slice. I’m excited for the day that the recipe is passed down to me, but also terrified. I know it won’t taste the same. Thankfully, I have years before that happens. Until then, every single person in our family will squeeze as much of the chocolate cake from my mother as possible, secretly dreading the day the job will fall into my inexperienced hands.
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