cage & fish and velvet legends

it was bound to happen one day. maybe it's already happened to a lucky handful of you. well, let me come right out and say it. here's some toilet humor for y'all: yesterday i fell into the toilet! in my own apt., no less! yes, just like that one episode of ally mcbeal�remember that? yeah. why, oh why do men leave the toilet seat up? this has me thinking, i'd better be careful and watch my ass at work. haha. just like cage & fish associates, my office has unisex bathrooms. sans the ally mcbeal drama, so far. ;-)

i declare: saturday's b-day celebration for my dad was a success. he liked my gift, and loved the red velvet cake. as i mentioned in my previous entry, i've always seen red velvet as a special occasion cake. my earliest memory of it was on my mom's birthday when i was four, and hearing her explain to me that it was a chocolate cake, only red. then i remember requesting a red velvet cake the year i turned 10. and, of course, my sister & i made a red velvet cake for our parents' 30th wedding anniversary.

so obviously, i've known about red velvet cake for most of my life. i kind of knew, informally, that a lot of southerners embrace it as a dessert with southern roots. other than that, i don't know much about its origins. however, apparently, there is an urban-legend out there, surrounding this rich, red, decadent, wonder. you've no doubt heard the one about the $250 neiman-marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe. well, the legend about the red velvet cake is the same basic storyline. during the 1940's, a woman dining at manhattan's elegant waldorf-astoria hotel requested their delicious waldorf cake recipe. the waldorf granted her request�along with a bill charging $100 for the recipe. so out of revenge, the angry woman began circulating the top secret recipe for this cake.

whatever its roots, i'm glad the recipe is out there for all to enjoy. this is the red velvet cake recipe i use. it's originally printed in a tiny, old, paperback hershey's cocoa cookbook that my mom owns.

*PS: for anyone else who has haplessly fallen into the toilet, check out the johnny light.