A pound of shortening

The bright yellow tub of Crisco® on my grandmother's counter meant it was going to be a good day.

When I was a child, we lived in a two family house above my mother's parents. Each morning I would thump down the flight of of brown carpeted steps to my grandparent's ground floor apartment to play in the yard. Most days my grandparents would be busy about their chores, fixing things, going to the post office, trimming the roses. On rainy days I would help my grandmother clean the pantry, take all of the cans and boxes out, categorize them by building little canned pork and bean towers and tea tin towns, and then re-arrange them all neatly back in the pantry. Then there were those special mornings where the Kitchen Aid mixer was pulled out of its dark corner, and the tub of Crisco® stood boldly on the counter top. Those were the morning when I knew the sweet smell of vanilla would follow shortly and my grandmother would be making her pound cake.

There are still few things that make me more happy than my grandmother's pound cake. I love cutting a thick slice out of its perfectly dense, pale flesh, and dunking it into my morning coffee, saving the moist top to nibble at last. Its both heavenly and sinful. It was magical, we would gather all the ingredients and add them one by one into the mixer until the sweet, buttery batter was smooth. We'd then each take a little scoop of Crisco® in our hands to grease the heart shaped bunt pan we always used. After the pan was covered in a thin layer, we'd pick up the bowl with our shortening softened hands and poor the batter in, then place it into the oven and wait for the magic to happen. As a little girl, baking seemed like the closest thing to magic I could find in the real world. Some days I would pretend to shrink and grow like Alice in wonderland while nibbling on little squares of Elio's pizza. But this, this was real. Here we made a pasty liquid out of flour, shortening, sugar and eggs and in 45 minutes we had a heart shaped masterpiece. A buttery delight, that could bring happiness to all who were lucky enough to be offered a slice.

I'm definitely a purist when it comes to this pound cake, I don't believe in frosting, or adding a sauce to it. Some pleasures are meant to be simple, and unchanged. I still ask for my grandmother's pound cake every year for my birthday.