What You Eat: My Mint Chip Cake

In preparation of our Food issue (submissions open until November 1, after which they’ll simmer ’til winter), I’ve asked members of the LPR community to share stories of what they eat. Food occupies such a central place in our lives, that we can’t help but grow with it. Whether we were unpacking our first heavy box of pots and pans or, as in the case of this entry from Meg Eden, stepping simultaneously forward into adulthood and back into childhood, we can call on the sounds, smells, and tastes of our most formative and transformative foods to walk back into our own narrative histories. And on Laura’s suggestion, each piece in this series will feature a recipe, so you can cook yourself through an experience yourself. If you have a transformative experience with food, leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

And now that I’ve laid the table, Meg Eden:

Meg Eden

I don’t remember the first time I had my aunt’s mint chip cake. I never thought about the fact it was green, or how it was something we only ate at Thanksgiving. I took eating it for granted—I took for granted that everyone in my family could cook, that we all lived within the same mile. I took lots of things for granted, the way kids do.

Every Thanksgiving – after my uncle read Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, we would eat brunch and my aunt would bring out the cake. But my cousin and I couldn’t wait that long. Instead, we’d run upstairs and play N64 games until my parents said it was time to go.

During that time, my aunt and uncle’s house was like my house. They lived on the same street as us. My cousin was less than two days older than me. Every Saturday I’d come over and he and I would play video games, trade Pokémon cards, create a new civilization in the middle of the woods, or develop a new company idea and strategize what we’d do once we got millions of dollars. Other people made food for us and we ate it. Thinking too much about it would slow us down from taking over the world or becoming heroes.

Gradually and without explanation there were no Saturdays anymore. Once we were in high school and my cousin got his first car, he drove me around the cul de sac to show me its leather seats, smooth turns, and his stick-shift abilities. Sometimes he’d skateboard over and we’d complain about our teachers or talk about what we wanted to do with our lives. He’d tell me, “You have weird friends, Meg.” But my friends were just normal nerds who sat around and played the video games my cousin and I used to. It was his friends that I worried about. But when I began dating my first boyfriend, those visits ended.

I still came over to the house though. I came over like it was my own house. Now that I had no reason to be there, it became a sacred place. I would go to swim in the pool alone when no one was home. It was there that I recuperated from my weeks which were becoming more stressful, more adult-like.

And my aunt must have understood this change, because it was then that she began making mint chip cakes for me. She made them for my birthday, when I was sick, when I came over and vented frustrations. Every day became Thanksgiving, as Thanksgiving itself began to disappear.

When my aunt was too sick to host Thanksgiving, she prepared a mint chip cake for me and left it in my mailbox. I tried to make it last longer, cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces, but eventually it would all be gone. Was that what it meant, to get older? It was then that the mint chip cake became something large and extravagant to me—something that I was afraid of losing, despite how much I might grab for it. What was it that I was nostalgic for—my relationship with my cousin? My family? Being a girl?

My aunt became more and more sick, and eventually the Thanksgiving brunches disappeared. My mother told me I shouldn’t go over there and bother her, that she needed rest. But I would still go over without her knowing, swimming in the pool, hoping that someone might come outside.

It was when I was graduating college that I wanted to start making my own mint chip cakes. I asked my aunt for the recipe, and she said she’d send it to me, but for several months I didn’t get it. I waited, afraid that she had forgotten, but that Christmas, a large box arrived at my door. Inside there was a bunt cake mold, a cake display, several ingredients, and the recipe:

Mint Chip Cake

Prep Time: 10 | Cook Time: 50 | Makes: 14 | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 4oz package of pistachio pudding
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil
• 8oz sour cream
• 1/3 cup creme de menthe
• 8oz chocolate chips
• 8oz creme de menthe chips or crushed up Andes mints
• Powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Mix together cake mix, pistachio pudding mix, eggs, oil, sour cream, and creme de menthe. Stir for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add chocolate chips and mint chips, mix together.

3. Pour everything into a greased bundt pan. Bake at 350°F for 45-55 minutes.

4. Optionally, sift powdered sugar on the top of the cake after removing from the oven.

My boyfriend came over, and we baked the cake. It was full, and briefly tasted like being a girl again.

Meg Eden’s work has been published in various magazines, including B O D Y, Drunken Boat, Mudfish, and Rock & Sling. Her work received second place in the 2014 Ian MacMillan Fiction contest. Her collections include  “Your Son” (The Florence Kahn Memorial Award), “Rotary Phones and Facebook” (Dancing Girl Press) and “The Girl Who Came Back” (Red Bird Chapbooks). She teaches at the University of Maryland. Check out her work at: https://www.facebook.com/megedenwritespoems