My First.

I was ten years old when I brought my very first cook book.

It was at Bellvue Hospital at one of those book sales they used to hold in the lobby.

I had 20 dollars on me at the time and I spent the whole 20 on The Betty Crocker's Ultimate Cookie Book. Mom at hearing how much I purchased the book for said it was expensive and how could a cookie book cost so much money, but I didn't care.

I was excited to have it and looked through the pages over and over and over again on my train ride home, trying to decide which cookie would I bake first. I couldn't decide because everything looked good and all the pictures of the cookies looked so delicious. The even had recipes for brownies and bars too. To me, this cook book was totally the best thing ever!

Everything I've baked from that cook book came out delicious. When my neice and I decide to bake cookies together, this is the cook book I give her so she can choose what cookie we're going to make, so I guess it wasn't such a waste of money after all, lol.

Today, even though my cook book collection has grown bigger, the Betty Crocker's Ultimate Cookie Book is still the first book I look through when I decide I want to make cookies.

West Indian Black Cake

My mom and I made black cake today. Black cake is a Carribean dessert--kind of like a cross between a rum cake and a fruit cake, but ten times better.

It wasn't always like that though. The first time I ever had a slice of black cake, I was a young girl and I hated it. It was much too dense--not light and fluffy like all the other cakes I've eaten previously, it had that alcoholic burn from all the wine in it, and it had this deep caramel flavor; so deep, it almost borderlines burnt. I did not find this appealing at all.

As I got older, I came to love the flavors associated with black cake for exactly the same reasons I hated it when I was a kid.

The only times we would ever get to eat black cake was when a special occasion came up--like a wedding for example. My mom always wanted a recipe for it for years, but nobody would ever give her one. I have a cousin who can make a really nice black cake, but she refused to share the recipe. She however had no problem with us placing an order with her and paying her for a cake.