Another potluckortunity...

As some of you know, I sing, and have been doing as much since...forever really.  I have sung with some brilliant ensembles, but none so brilliant as the folks I sing with now.

Really.  During worship yesterday, we had 4 separate people leading songs, and all were wonderful.  Each was technically exquisite, and yet nearly invisible in self-awareness.  I sat for well over a year listening before I felt I could meet even their lowest standards.  I enjoy standing with these guys, and in their company I have GROWN.

I could spend hours counting the many ways I "love my church," and maybe someday I will.

All of this to say that last night we had a little gastronomic gathering, and I decided to bring a cake.

OK.  Not just a cake- an obnoxious Oreo Cake.  Lemme tell you all a little something about this cake: well...alright.  When an invitation declares that "women" are meant to bring a "dessert," my first thought is "yes!  time for cake!"  At the same time, while others are bringing unpretentious cobblers and puddings- the feeling I get when I walk into a room with something as loud as this...

...the feeling is not, "OK.  here is my dessert.  Job well done."  It is more like when I walked into junior prom wearing what looked like a wedding dress when everyone else wore short little whatevers, and being used the following Monday in a sentence that "Heather" constructed with one of our new vocabulary words: "ostentatious."

"Rachel's dress was very ostentatious at the prom."

Really, Heather?  Really?  You bought your dress at the same store.  And while we're at it, yes, my Birkenstocks were real.  You could have asked instead of throwing a pencil into the middle of the room and then asking me to pick it up.  I would have made you a rubbing of the logo.

And Salem- you charge $10,000 a year for school and I get teased for wearing a nice dress to the prom?  Geez.

Oh- wait.  Where was I?

Cake.  I labored over whether or not to bring one- but unlike some of the chicks whom I went to school with, I really think these kids like me as much as I like them.  And I think there may have been tears, or even a fire started by a small riot at the sight of my hands bearing sugar cookies.  I could hear their voices, faintly in my future:

"WE WANT CAKE! WE WANT CAKE!"

I couldn't disappoint.  I then conceived the most gaudy and sumptuous cake I could imagine: A two-layer chocolate cake, each resting on an oreo crumb crust.  In the center is thick smear of Oreo cream cheese frosting, and milky chocolate fudge and cookie crumbs bring the thing together.  It is my husband's favorite, as he says that every bite holds something a little different: a combination of textures your tongue hasn't discerned before.

Num num.

I will post a recipe soon- I am finishing up a website this week, and some other very exciting things that I cannot really talk about right now.

And I want to say quickly that I love cobblers, cookies, brownies, parfaits, mock cheese cake, animal crackers, and whatever else was there last night.  Please, no one be offended by my very tongue and cheek commentary on the importance of cake-baking.

Have a beautiful day.

Rachel Bee