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Families and Food
Wednesday, September 14, 2005

By Christian VanGinkel

My son's birthday is coming up. He will officially be a teenager. He had a request last night that I make him a traditional birthday cake. Most years that I can remember, he has always requested an ice cream cake, which I diligently ordered from a local store. One year I do recall having a regular cake, but it was also ordered from the store. Instead, this year we are going to both bake and decorate it ourselves. Part of this came about because we were discussing what his grandparents and uncle did for a living when I was about the age he is now. They owned a bakery, considered by many to be the best in a five county area for many, many years. The discussion itself came about as we were sitting down to our evening meal, which we eat together every night, as we are firm believers in the saying that families who eat together, talk, and talk we do.

The bakery was a family operation, with the youngest member being I at the time. I was twelve when the business was closed about a year after my father's passing. What I remember most about the bakery though were the times spent helping waiting on customers, and watching my one brother decorate cakes. An artist by birth, he could take a few layers of sheet cake and turn them into flowered, gabled, works of art. My sister's wedding cake was resplendent in not only flowers and other fancy frosting work; it even had a real working water fountain. Not reserved just for family though, his cakes were known and requested by many. After my father passed and the business closed, he headed out to California where he became employed by a business named 'The Cake Walk'. He went on to decorate cakes for stars including Kenny Rogers, George Burns, Lilly Tomlin, and many other well knows actors and musicians.

We were discussing all of this and other memories, when my son had the grand idea that if our background included such an artist and a cake artist at that, we should be able to bake and decorate one cake. A budding artist himself, he is quite thrilled at the idea of me baking a cake and him decorating it. I concluded as this was under discussion that even if we were not of the background we are, that I could not think of a better way for the two of us to spend time together than in the kitchen creating something that will help us celebrate his birth. Food is a universal part of each family. The cooking and baking part and the sitting down together to eat it, brings family members together like nothing else, as we all eat each day, so it is the ideal task to bring family members together every day. So, beyond the baking and decorating of his birthday cake, I hope we continue to cook together often, and enjoy meals together each day, as bringing family members together is what family is all about to begin with.

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