Foodie Friday, Hooked On Houses Party, and Last Chance for my Giveaway!

Click here for more Foodie Fun, thanks to Gollum!
************************And click here to link to Hooked On Houses Friday Blog Party,
hosted by the amazing Julia.

That Old House is a mixed bag today: Foodie Friday -- Hooked On Houses Blog Party -- Odds & Ends -- and a last chance for anyone to enter my Giveaway for a
Johnson Bros. gravy boat:

Click here!

Catching up on some Odds & Ends, down below, but first... for Foodie Friday, the recipe for Grandma Cake. You will thank me, yes you will, as this cake elevates the simple to the sublime. It is just pure goodness. And it's even better a teensy bit stale.

Grandma Cake... recipe and a little background!

My grandmother was born in Norway in 1875, and grew up in a house that dated back to Viking days. She lived until I was in college, and she was nearly 100. She'd wanted to make that century mark, but she didn't get her way on that one, although she did on nearly everything else in her life.

She raised 7 children in New York City, in a big house on the rich farmland where JFK Airport now stands. My father is her youngest, and he is nearly 89.

She was a remarkable woman,
Margrethe Olave Eskeland Lindtveit.

She could draw sewing patterns freehand, sewed all the clothes for her big family, including coats and men's shirts, knitted like a machine, crocheted, tatted, and, until they rotted apart from age and sunlight, a set of Hardanger curtains she made as a young bride hung in my family's dining room.

She had the greenest thumb this side of Eden, skipped lunch to afford fresh flowers, was barely 5-feet tall, opinionated, smart, determined, and she scared her family witless. Not one of your pushover grandmothers, my Grandma.

She walked barefoot in the morning dew 3 seasons of the year, had long glossy brilliant white hair that she washed in an enamel dishpan with a bar of coal tar soap and then dried outside, in the sunshine, the hair streaming down her back; to my sister and me she looked like an aging enchanted princess.

She loved boats and fishing and her husband Gunvald devotedly (and probably equally), could gut a fish and pan fry it to perfection, baked the flakiest piecrust, and made a bundt-style cake that is the best food, ever, anywhere on the planet.

She gave that recipe to my mother, least loathed of her daughters-in-law, and my mother promised to pass it on to me. She never did. When Mom sank into Alzheimer's, I figured the recipe for Grandma Cake was lost forever.

But recently my sister Peggy handed my mother's recipe box to me:

Lo and behold, there it was, right in front . . . the Holy Grail:

I love how my Mom wrote "Serves 12 - 15."
What family was she thinking of?
If you click on the picture, the recipe will greatly enlarge and you can easily read it. I love that it's in my Mom's distinctive handwriting. But, in case you have trouble deciphering it, here is the recipe:

GRANDMA CAKE
3 cups flour (unbleached)
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. mace
a pinch of salt
1 cup butter (no margarine; Grandma will rise up and smite you!)
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla

Mix all the above thoroughly and beat at high speed for 3 to 4 minutes. Bake at 350 for approx. 1 hour.

(It's not written down, as you are clearly just supposed to know that the cake batter goes into a greased bundt or tube pan before you put it in the oven!)

This is not a fine-grained pound cake; it has a rather coarse crumb, and the outside gets quite dark and caramelized looking and as the cake ages a day or two the "crust" gets a bit of a crunch to it. Oh my. I may have to bake this. I don't bake anymore because Howard and I aren't eating sugary things. I may have to make an exception. Please let me know if you try it!

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Update... I made the Grandma Cake ... Yum
Pics and story here!
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And now for those Odds & Ends...

You know that I am hooked on That Old House, and a bit obsessive about getting it "just right." If you remember my powder room metamorphosis, I asked for opinions on curtain fabric, and most of you thought "toile" and some even said, "black and white toile." Methinks you were right!

I just happened to have a sample of a cream and black toile, so up it went on the window frame with a piece of trusty blue tape. I liked it:

Then I remembered a toile I bought 2 years ago at WalMart for $1.00 a yard.
Yes, ladies and maybe a gent or two, that's $1.00 a yard.

(Pardon the wrinkles! It was stuffed in a drawer.)

This isn't your quality toile, no fancy name on the selvedge, but it is already mine, and there is enough for a nice full swag on the powder room window. Free is good.

And there it is, taped up, and dragging down the wall.
(When I find something nice for a buck a yard, I splurge. I bought a lot.)

So what do you think?

It's thin, but I'll line it. I think it will do just fine.
Stay tuned for the "after" pictures!

And speaking of befores & afters. . . I used a red and white tureen in yesterday's Tablescape Thursday post, and before I put it back on top of
Grandma's china cabinet . . .

...(yes, that very same Grandma)...

I thought it might look good on my nearly-nekkid sideboard:

Hey, it's a start.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I will announce the
winner of the gravy boat tomorrow morning (Saturday).
Not too early. . . .