A Brief Lesson in Literacy and Chocolate Cake

I get really random, really bad cravings. You’d almost think I was pregnant, but I’ve been this way for my whole life. Also, I never crave gross combinations of foods. I never want pickles and fudge ice cream, for instance. At least not together. But these cravings, they’re instantaneous. And relentless. One minute I’ll be a normal girl in her early twenties, and the next minute I’m a rabid monster out for blood, or in one case, chocolate cake.

Hooo boy, did I want some chocolate cake. And not just any old chocolate cake. Oh, no. I wanted the kind of chocolate cake that has little streams of hot fudge running through it. I had fantasies about that chocolate cake. I could see it there, sitting warm and tempting in the pan, fresh from the oven. I could see my hand holding a fork and heading for that warm, gooey deliciousness. I could see the prongs of the fork sinking into the chocolate and pulling a chunk out, and I could see my hand lifting the bite to my mouth. (I know, I know. Where’s the plate, right? You’re thinking that I skipped the step where I cut out a piece and put it on a plate, or at least a paper towel, like a civilized being would do. You obviously don’t know me at all.)

I suffered through cravings for three days. (I told you they were relentless.) One of my roommates finally took pity on me and let me go to the store with her to purchase the ingredients that would end my suffering—and my roommates’. After three days of groaning, I’d succeeded in dragging half my roommates into the craving with me and making the other half crazy with annoyance.

But to put a true end to the annoyance and the craving, I had to make the cake. Now, I am the first to admit that I have had many mishaps with food: the Great Tomato Sauce Explosion; the Toffee, Plastic Bowl, and Microwave Incident; the Tolo Chocolate Sauce Fiasco…the list goes on. But in my defense, I am actually a decent cook, when I’m paying attention to what I’m doing.

I really tried to pay attention with the chocolate cake. I swear. I checked the directions repeatedly to make sure that I had all the needed ingredients. I kept thinking, Hmmm, this recipe does call for an oddly large amount of cooking oil, which should have been a thought that brought the rest of my brain to full attention. My brain, upon looking back, seemed to have prematurely gone into ecstasy over the mere prospect of chocolate cake, and was not available to give me a little help.

As I dumped the second two-thirds cup of cooking oil into the mix, I happened to look down at the directions again. And that’s when I realized that I am illiterate.

The requirement of one and a thirds cup was for water, not oil. Somehow, I had missed that little bit of information the first few times I looked at the back of the box. My reaction to this was (and this is a direct quote), "Oh, crap." I yelled the order to start bailing the boat, and began scooping up as much oil from the bowl into the measuring cup as I could without also scooping up chocolate cake mix. I estimate that I got about half the oil out, which left me with about 2/3 cup oil in my cake. The actual required amount was half a cup, so I figured, hey, what’s a little extra oil among cakes?

I added the other ingredients, in their proper amounts, and the consistency seemed right. However, when we tasted the batter, Bridget and I could definitely taste the oil more than any other ingredient, including the chocolate. This we took as a bad sign. We were debating whether to actually cook the cake or not when Camille walked in, talking on the phone, and without consulting me or Bridget, she stuck her finger in the cake mix and tasted it. She didn't sense anything weird (meaning she didn't taste anything weird, though I'm sure she could have used her other senses as well), so we decided maybe it just tasted like oil to us 'cause we knew that there was an excess of oil. We decided to give the cake another chance, and to teach me to read. (I wasn’t an English major or an editing minor at that point. I was an archaeology major, and dead people don’t always expect you to be able to read.)

Thirty minutes later, we had a chocolate cake, or what looked like a chocolate cake. Despite copious amounts of hot fudge in and on the cake, it did not taste like chocolate cake. Did it taste like oil? No, actually, we couldn’t taste the oil, which came as a pleasant surprise to everyone. It didn’t, however, even taste like cake of any kind. No, it tasted like cardboard.

I need not go into details about my despair. I’d had another of my kitchen catastrophes, and I was left cakeless. I think that gives you a fair idea of what I felt that night. On the bright side, however, I didn’t blow anything up, set anything on fire, cover the entire kitchen (surfaces and appliances) in hot toffee, or fling chocolate sauce on anyone’s expensive clothing. So I guess you could say the night turned out not so bad after all.