Aimee and I had the good fortune to dine at Colin and Barb's last night, where we ate crab cakes, corn on the cob, and good bread (among other things). We brought the desert, which was my mom's pound cake (a real no-shit true to the name pound cake, I believe), which we toasted and topped with vanilla ice cream and ripe nectarine slices tossed in fresh chopped mint and a wonderfully thick balsamic vinegar that was bottled in 1975 (if you're saying "wow!", I was too). It was amazing. There was universal agreement that mom's was "the best pound cake I've ever had." Which brings me back to a friendly argument I had with my good pal Wildwoman (a pseudonym, some will know, some will not) some two years ago, in which we both insisted that our respective family matrons made the best pound cake.
Her's was made by her grandmother, and while I'm sure that it was fabulous, I submit as evidence the testimony of Colin, Barb, and Aimee that my mom's is the best pound cake that has ever graced the South. Originally I had placed my grandmother's cake against her grandmother's, but my grandmother has quit making pound cake because she recognizes the superiority of my mom's and feels she can't compete, so that's where the argument lays.
It was hilarious when it happened, because it went something like this:
Wildwoman: My grandma's pound cake is the best ever.
Josh: No it isn't, because my grandmother's pound cake is the best.
Wildwoman: Everybody in (insert god-forsaken little rural NC town) knows that my grandmother made the best pound cake in the land.
Josh: Well they're all wrong, because everybody in my town knows that my grandmother's pound cake is the best.
Wildwoman: Well I guess we'll never find out, because my grandmother is dead.
Josh: Then I guess I win, because mine isn't. (Don't worry, it's cool, we have that kind of friendship.)
The customer who observed this exchange was thoroughly dumbfounded. It was really funny.
So, not that I love to kick the shit out of dead horses, but my mom's pound cake is better than my grandmothers. Therefore, my mother's pound cake is better than Wildwoman's grandmother's.
My logic is Fort Knox-like, no?
While I may have the best pound cake in my family, Wildwoman has a respectable advantage on the homestead farming front. Check out her blog at:
http://bluefieldacres.blogspot.com/As for the future of this pound cake discussion, I'm quoting Julius Caesar upon his crossing of the Rubicon on his way to becoming the head of the Roman Empire: "
Alea iacta est."
Do your worst, Wildwoman. Do your worst.
