Simple Lemon and Walnut Cake by the Careless Cook

 

I readily admit you haven’t heard from the Careless Cook in a while. Make that a long while. Have a bunch of excuses. No. Not correct.  Only one. Poetry.  

 

I can hear my three faithful readers gurgling as they chug some of their beer and let the rest spill down their faded, stained t-shirts, mumbling: “Stop with the chatter! And gimmie me sump-ten ta eat! And make it good stuff! I ain’t waitin’ much longer!”

 

Ok, zip up your pants and follow this recipe, drunk or sober, as if you have a choice. Get your wife to help you with the big words.

 

Time to cut to the kitchen.

 

Simply a Lemon Walnut Cake that you can start stuffing in your mouth in 45 minutes.

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup white sugar

½ cup of butter, softened (I used 30 second in a microwave oven.)

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or one glug)

2 teaspoons baking powder, more of less 

¾ cup milk (I use oat milk)

1 tablespoon lemon zest – now is when your wife has to stop in

1 tablespoon lemon juice. (Maybe little more, because the Careless Cook just doesn’t care)

A good hand full of walnuts, crushed (I fold the nuts in a dishtowel and use a rolling pin to teach those nuts a lesson)

 

Very Simple Icing

 

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 heaping teaspoons powdered sugar

 

Stir well.

 

 

Getting’ it Done and Keepin’ it Simple

 

Oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C)

 

For baking, I used a well-greased 9 by 9 inch ceramic pan

 

Use a large mixing bowl and beat sugar and butter until fluffy. I used an electric hand mixer.

Then add eggs and vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice. Use that mixer and really get it together!

 

Add the flour and baking powder. Use that hand mixer viciously.  

 

Add the nuts and do the same.

 

Then add the milk and do more damage. 

 

Drop it all in the 9 by 9 inch baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Top should be lightly brown, but still give it the knife test.

 

Make the icing and paint it on.  The first coating it will glisten. When it’s not so glistening, paint on some more and then some more of the same until all the icing is used. 

 

 

 

 

Floating Poetry

 

Often people ask, how do you come up with these thoughts. Sometimes they're talking about my novels, and even more often about my poetry.  This poem explains it as best I can. But, the fact is I don't know.

                           Twinkle Through the Air

Thin soft blues, light misty greens, pale enchanting yellows

Fingers tapping through random thoughts with chanced excitement 

Bells pealing, led by soft leather clappers

Melodiously whispered words float by, 

Cascading, careless notes, sliding over happy thoughts 

Floating across misty waters, skimming across thin paper,

Chambered poetic music, soothing blinking eyes.

That wander happily across a field of poetry. 

 

A lover’s kiss

 

Come and lie beside me love, share a lover’s kiss

Passing not a single word, absorb ourselves in bliss

 

Wind your arms around me softly, cast off cares within

Surely from the core of heaven comes the warmth again.

 

There is no struggle in our world, the private world we share

Comfort comes with every longing with us lying there.

 

Just as the moon arises to replace the setting sun

A single kiss can light our way and sorrows overrun.

 

And oh the strength of touching, how it overcomes our need

As wistful as the willow, the lightness of the breeze.

 

So cling to me and pass the night as I cling to you

Allow the strength and joy to flow, and our love renew.

 

 

I am a ghost of the forest,

Empty bones snap and chafe beneath  white sheets.

While the forest weeps for lost, fractured leaves.

Silver, cracked, and rotting statues.

Forlorn from times long gone, ignored, forgotten,

Staring at bright roaming stars, hope denied,

For doom has sucked their golden sap,

Dry, cracked and brittle.

No leaves to hide their slithered bark.

Tomorrow begs that they be gone!

Away, away with beauty, pealed and scattered.

Pools of muddy water crawl aimlessly,

Awaiting lost tomorrows,

While through my boney knees,

Brown muck churns against all that's left of me.