Patti Friday

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Lemon Pucker Cake

Roman’s Lemon Pucker Weekend

Every August, just as the sun began to dip a little lower over Ottawa’s slate rooftops and the cicadas started sounding like they’d had one too many cold drinks, Roman prepared for what she called Kissing Cousins Weekend—a sacred, syrupy ritual stitched into the very fabric of her life like the embroidered lemon graphic tee she only wore once a year.

Roman—named for her great-grandmother who apparently had a flair for dramatic naming and ironing tea towels—was the keeper of tradition, tales, and tart desserts. She lived in a wee walk-up in Centretown with creaky floors, breezy curtains, and a kitchen no wider than a canoe. Still, she made it work. With her lemon bowl taking pride of place on her countertop island (really just a vintage cabinet she wheeled into position), Roman had everything she needed: citrus, stories, and strong opinions on cake texture.

The cousins—four of them, all girls, all loud in their own way—would arrive with overnight bags, scented body sprays, tangled hair, and at least one tale of heartache or nearly-getting-a-tattoo. “Kissing Cousins” wasn’t meant literally, though Roman once had to clarify that after a bewildered coworker raised an eyebrow. It was more about both-cheek-kisses and cousin closeness, the kind only girls raised by loud aunties and braided childhoods could understand.

Every year, Roman cooked something cozy: one-pot pasta, garlicky bread torn by hand, a salad no one ate because they were saving room. But the crown jewel was always her Lemon Pucker Cake—a thin, glossy sheet pan creation with a puckered top and a bright, tongue-tingling glaze.

“You better brace yourselves,” Roman would say, slicing it into wobbly squares. “This one bites back.”

And it did. Tart and soft with a sugar crust that crackled just enough, it was a cake that demanded attention and made your eyes squint with pleasure.

They ate it barefoot on the balcony, ankles tucked up under them, coffee glasses sweating in the late summer heat. Roman always brewed it strong and iced it in jam jars with sweetened milk, the way their mothers had on long road trips through the Valley.

They talked about exes and lipsticks and whether anyone still wore low-rise jeans on purpose. They cried once, always once, and laughed so hard it hurt, every year without fail.

One cousin, Frankie, swore the cake was cursed.

“Why cursed?” Roman asked, grinning.

“Because after I eat it, everything tastes boring for three weeks. Including my love life.”

Roman just sipped her iced coffee, satisfied. That was the point. Life should pucker sometimes.

By Sunday morning, the lemon bowl would be empty, the sheet pan soaking in the sink, and the apartment full of the kind of sweetness that doesn't come from sugar.

And as the girls left, Roman would stand in the doorway in her yellow shorts, arms crossed, hair wild, and shout,
“Same time next year! Don’t forget—bring your stories, not your boyfriends!”

Because in Roman’s little corner of the city, lemon was law, love was messy, and cousins were forever.

ORDER a fine art print of ‘Lemon Pucker Cake’ here.

Monday, June 9, 2025

Willa's Blueberry Hill

Willa’s Blueberry Hill

Willa Beth Givens never did find her thrill on Blueberry Hill—though not for lack of trying. There’d been one or two maybes and a whole handful of absolutely nots, but Willa lived by the philosophy that it was far better to be alone than to listen to someone chew cereal too loudly for the rest of your natural life.

She lived in a crooked farmhouse just outside a one-street Ontario farm town where the tractors had right of way and everyone knew whose barn dance ended in tears. Her front porch sagged in a way that suggested wisdom, not neglect, and the old shed beside the lilac hedge had become something of a local legend.

Willa’s Antiques & Oddments, open Fridays only, sunup to sold out, was crammed full of enamel basins, chipped teacups, pressed glass candy dishes, and furniture that smelled like time. Willa never advertised, not even on Facebook, but word got out—especially about the pies.

Every Thursday afternoon, Willa would tie on her apron (cream linen, embroidered with blueberries, naturally), put on a radio station that played nothing recorded after 1972, and got to work. She baked well into the night, accompanied by the hum of crickets and the occasional thump from a raccoon attempting larceny.

The result was her signature creation: Blueberry Pie for One.

Each was a petite, palm-sized beauty baked in a four inch tin foil pan, crust golden and sugared, blueberries bubbling up like secrets. She sold them for five dollars flat, no tax, no nonsense. A hand-painted sign at the end of her long gravel drive read:

“BLUEBERRY PIES FOR ONE — UNTIL SOLD OUT”
(underneath, in smaller letters: “No, you may not reserve them. That’s not how pie works.”)

By 8 a.m. Friday, a line would form. Farmers in overalls. Retired schoolteachers. Teenagers in search of something ironic. They’d mill around the driveway sipping thermoses of coffee and hoping Willa hadn’t run out before their turn.

Willa, in her linen dress and cloud of soft brown hair, would unlock the shed promptly at 9:00 with a key shaped like a tulip and call out, “Alright, you lot! No pushing, and don’t try to sweet-talk me out of a second pie ‘til everyone’s been served.” Then she’d plop a tattered wooden sign up against the old maple tree. It was a pun by her late Mother who always said, ‘Pie Are Round. Cake Are Square’.

Folks came for the antiques, sure—but it was the pie they talked about. Served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you were lucky enough to befriend Willa, the pie was rich with whole berries and the kind of crust that could make a widow weep.

“Why only for one?” someone asked once.

Willa shrugged. “Because you deserve something just for you, sugar. No sharing, no forks fighting for the last bite. Just peace, blueberries, and a little butter.”

She never married, never moved, and never once raised her prices. And though she never found her thrill on Blueberry Hill, she built her own hill of sorts—made of pie tins, antique spoons, and a quiet kind of joy that didn’t need to be shared to be worth everything.

ORDER fine art print of ‘Pie Are Round Cake Are Square’ here.

Prue and the Red Velvet Society

Prue Blevins lived in a village so small the post office doubled as a bait shop and the mayor’s dog held unofficial office hours on the church steps. The whole town leaned up against a lazy river that looped like a lopsided smile, and everything—weather, gossip, and tomato yields—moved at the speed of porch rockers and polite pauses.

Prue, widowed these past fifteen years but no less opinionated for it, was the reigning matriarch of the Violet Valley County Horticultural Society, a group she founded with two other women and one man who only joined for the lemonade. Now, it boasted twelve active members and one waiting list (Tammy Jo Elkins, who refused to deadhead anything and once mistook a peony for a cabbage, had been gently told to “just enjoy nature from a respectful distance”).

Most days, you could find Prue in the community parkette, a glorified triangle of land wedged between the diner and the feed store, tugging weeds with the precision of a surgeon and muttering things like, “Heaven help me, these marigolds are drunk on sunshine.” The bronze fountain in the center—a ring of dancing children cast in 1963—sprinkled merrily beside her, though one child had a slight lean due to an unfortunate incident involving a mischievous raccoon and an overenthusiastic high school band fundraiser.

But the real magic happened the first Tuesday of every month, when Prue hosted her gardening ladies at Dot’s Diner. Dot, who ran the place with a spatula in one hand and a can of Aqua Net in the other, reserved the corner booth under the big window. Prue would waltz in, hair pinned up in what she called her “bouffant with backbone,” and treat every single woman to a thick, glorious slice of Red Velvet Cake.

Now, this was no average cake. Dot made it from scratch with buttermilk, cocoa, and a cream cheese frosting that could redeem even the rudest cousin at a family reunion. It was the unofficial currency of kindness in town.

Prue had a tradition. Before they ate, she’d raise her fork and declare:
“Here’s to dirt under our nails and frosting on our lips. May your mulch be rich, your petunias obedient, and your neighbor’s cat stay out of your zinnias.”

The ladies would laugh, clink forks like champagne glasses, and dig in.

One Tuesday, a newcomer named Clarabelle—who had just moved from Collingwood and wore gardening gloves with rhinestones—asked, “Prue, why Red Velvet?”

Prue dabbed her mouth delicately. “Because it’s dramatic,” she said. “It looks like it’s got a secret. Just like gardeners—we know what goes on under the surface.”

The women all nodded. There was wisdom in that cake.

So Prue weeded. She hosted. She celebrated soil and sweetness. And in a town where not much changed, she became a quiet legend: the woman who kept the parkette tidy, the roses pruned, and the Red Velvet flowing—proof that a little sugar, a lot of sun, and a stubborn root system can hold a village together just fine.

ORDER a fine art print of ‘Red Velvet Cake’ here.

Poppy in White. Milk and Moonlight. White Cake White Icing

Poppy in White

Poppy Calhoun had a calling. Not a job, not a lifestyle, not even a “personal aesthetic” as those downtown girls with podcasts might say. No, Poppy had a calling, and it came in shades of milk and moonlight.

She lived her entire life in white. Not just white, mind you—white, ivory, cream, vanilla bean, frosted pearl, alabaster, and on occasion, when she was feeling wild, a daring ecru. Her closet was a snowy spectrum. Her front porch was flanked by white hydrangeas the size of small cabbages. Even her rescue cat, Blanche, wore a tiny linen collar the color of whipped meringue. Poppy’s hair was the palest ‘Targaryen’ blonde.

Poppy was a Flower Stylist, the kind of florist who didn’t just arrange blossoms—she curated floral poetry. Her studio, tucked into the back of an old house with chippy paint and floorboards that creaked like your Aunt ’s Sophie’s knees, was the kind of place you whispered in without realizing why. Brides-to-be came from three counties just to sit on her marshmallow velvet loveseat and imagine what their big day might smell like.

“I specialize in white weddings,” Poppy would say, smiling like a secret. “Not just the flowers. The feeling.”

And Lord help the woman who asked for red roses.

Each bridal consultation included tea served in antique china and one perfectly plated slice of her famous White Cake White Icing. It was part gesture, part ritual, part spell. Two layers, snowy and soft, flavored with almond and something Poppy would never admit out loud but might be a dash of coconut extract. The frosting was a whipped cloud of buttercream that made grown women cry and one groom-to-be propose to Poppy by mistake.

“It’s like eating a silk pillow,” one bride whispered reverently, as though sugar could be sacred.

Of course, not everyone understood her devotion to the palette.

“Don’t it ever feel a little… sterile?” her cousin Susie Lou asked once, waving a rhinestone-studded nail at Poppy’s kitchen, where even the salt and pepper shakers were shaped like porcelain swans.

“It feels peaceful,” Poppy replied. “Besides, have you ever seen a stain on a white tablecloth and not remembered the exact moment it happened? White holds memory. It’s honest.”

Susie blinked, popped her gum, and muttered, “Well, alright then, Sister Ghost.”

But the brides understood. And the flowers did too. Casablanca lilies, Queen Anne’s lace, garden roses, dusty miller, lisianthus, gardenias that bruised if you so much as looked at them cross-eyed—Poppy coaxed them all into clean, dreamy arrangements that looked like moonlight had decided to get married.

By year’s end, she’d sent fifty-seven brides down the aisle in a soft cloud of cream and calm. And each one of them said the same thing, months later, in thank-you notes edged with dried petals:

“I still think about that cake. And the calm. And how white, in your hands, felt like the warmest thing in the world.”

Which just proves what Poppy always said: White’s not cold. It’s hope with frosting.

ORDER a fine art print of White Cake White Icing here.

Sunday, June 8, 2025

Victorian Sponge: The Queen, the Cake, and the Pimento Panic

The Queen, the Cake, and the Pimento Panic

Lizzie Henley had lived in Alabama for exactly three months, two weeks, and five afternoons, and she still wasn’t sure whether “fixin’ to” meant about to do something or threatening to.

Back home in Surrey, “picnics” meant gingham blankets, gentle banter, and a nice Victoria Sponge if the weather held. In her new Southern neighborhood, picnics were full-blown catered affairs with pimento cheese in crystal bowls, coconut cakes that could double as wedding centerpieces, and monogrammed coolers big enough to house a medium-sized pony.

Today’s event was the “Preppy Picnic,” held under the weeping willow by the river, hosted by the Ladies Auxiliary and coordinated by Mrs. Trudy Pickens — a woman with a bouffant so high Lizzie was fairly certain it had its own barometric pressure.

Eager to contribute, Lizzie baked her best Victoria Sponge: two golden rounds, light as a sigh, sandwiched with raspberry jam and whipped cream, dusted with icing sugar and dignity. She nestled it in her wicker basket and braved the heat, mosquitoes, and suspicious glances from a man who looked personally offended by her straw hat.

At the picnic, long folding tables bowed under the weight of Southern classics. There were deviled eggs in formation, congealed salads in every shade of pastel, and no fewer than four coconut cakes, each taller than a toddler and glistening like snow on a humid afternoon.

Lizzie cleared her throat and placed her cake delicately between a stack of cheese straws and something labeled “Peach Pretzel Surprise.”

“Whatcha got there, hon?” asked Mrs. Pickens, eyeing the cake like it had a British passport and questionable intentions.

“It’s a Victoria Sponge,” Lizzie replied with her most cheerful tone. “Very traditional. Bit of a British classic.”

Mrs. Pickens blinked. “Well isn’t that… refined.” She said it like one might say “off-brand” or “too many cats.”

The women mingled. The pimento cheese was worshipped. Someone sang a hymn while slicing lemon squares. Lizzie stood by her cake like a debutante at her first ball, smiling politely while everyone walked straight past her sponge in favor of things topped with crushed pecans or suspicious gelatin.

Then a small hand reached up.

“I want that one,” said Betsy Lou, age five, dressed in head-to-toe prep and a tutu.

She took one bite, froze dramatically, and shouted, “IT’S LIKE EATING A CLOUD FILLED WITH LOVE!”

You could’ve heard a deviled egg drop.

Soon, forks flew. Slices vanished. The sponge was declared “delicate, yet sassy” by one lady who had never before said anything kind about European desserts.

Mrs. Pickens took a dainty bite, nodded once, and said, “Well. That’ll do.”

Which, in Southern, was a standing ovation.

And from that day on, Lizzie was no longer the British girl who brought that pale cake. She was Miss Victoria Sponge. (Betsy Lou called her Queen Victoria!)

And honey, you better believe she was invited to every picnic after that.

ORDER ‘Victorian Sponge’ fine art print here.