While I was writing my previous blog entry, I was talking to one of my best friends Nana about cake. We are both trying to get fit and not fat, and cake gets in the way. Lately, my mother has been bringing home iced madeira cake, with little layers of cream and raspberry jam in the middle, and it’s absolutely delicious and irresistible, and plays havoc with my spreadsheet where I plot the nights that I do snack after dinner against the nights that I don’t (I have improved a lot in the last 5 months! I currently stand at not snacking 68% of nights, and my aim for August is to get to 75%). This is the conversation (Nana is “Back in London”, I am “chase – lycanthropy” – but then, you didn’t need me to tell you that if you’ve been reading 😉 ) :
11:59:32 Back in London :-): ohhh yes
11:59:48 Back in London :-): ahh cake 😀
11:59:52 chase – lycanthropy: hah
11:59:58 chase – lycanthropy: cake is my friend and my enemy
12:00:15 Back in London :-): yes
12:00:23 Back in London :-): i have a love hate relationship with cake too
12:00:45 Back in London :-): he has me wrapped around his finger…
12:00:50 Back in London :-): makes me want him more when i know i shouldn’t
12:01:31 chase – lycanthropy: haha you think of cake as a man
12:01:34 chase – lycanthropy: i think of cake as a woman
12:01:39 chase – lycanthropy: but yes i know what you mean
12:01:47 chase – lycanthropy: iced madeira cake is especially tempting
12:01:52 chase – lycanthropy: also toffee cheesecake
12:01:58 chase – lycanthropy: (which is what my nan serves)
12:02:33 Back in London :-): omg
12:02:37 Back in London :-): maybe i should just come to bristol today
12:02:38 Back in London :-): lol
12:06:55 chase – lycanthropy: :p
12:07:05 chase – lycanthropy: i am going to write a blog about this conversation we have had about cake, you know
12:07:06 chase – lycanthropy: i can see it now
12:08:02 Back in London :-): hahaha
12:08:11 Back in London :-): i look forward to it 😉
12:08:13 chase – lycanthropy: 😀
The thing I find most interesting is that Nana thought of cake as a “male” thing, whereas I envisioned cake as more of a female temptress, weaving her web around me and drawing me in closer. It’s funny how people’s minds work and differ. I am used to the idea, after years and years of language study, of the idea of nouns being masculine or feminine; interestingly, “gâteau” is masculine in the French, and “pastel” in the Spanish is also masculine. But “tarte” (French) and “tarta” (Spanish) are both feminine. So unless we’re being really specific about what kind of cake we’re eating (whether it is a big cheesecake, or a slab of marble sponge), either gender could go. I guess another reason why I think of cake as feminine is because until you’ve eaten 3 slices and it’s sitting in your stomach (something I genuinely don’t do very often, I promise), cake is a dainty, light creature, with pretty pastel colours of icing and soft, sweet flavours. In other words, to me, cake isn’t exactly grr butch. But obviously now I’m gender stereotyping, and I like people to think that I am sweet and seductive (at least some of the time, when my façade isn’t being icy cold).
I watched Transamerica and it’s funny how that film links in. I’m not going to do an in-depth review of it or anything, you can get those elsewhere. But Felicity Huffman and Kevin Zegers both expertly played flawed yet beautiful characters who shone in the midst of an occasionally hokey script. And we all have a quest to work out who we are, because society demands to put us in a box of its own conventions – he, she, gay, straight, etc. We can’t just be because then nobody knows where they stand and how to “understand” us (the joke being that they’d rather not spend the time trying). And I think, in a practical, day-to-day way, I can understand that. If we spent time trying to suss out every single person who came our way and honestly made the effort to see who they really are, we’d never get anything done. Labels never tell the whole story, but I can appreciate that they exist for a reason. But when the label is wrong, then the misunderstood person has a lot of ground to catch up, all the while feeling like an outsider just waiting for someone to see the beauty of who they are, beyond what they are, regardless of sexuality or gender. At least cake doesn’t have that problem – whether we think of it as a he or she, at least we are in no doubt as to how marvellous it both looks and tastes!
(ps. Nana, I hope you don’t mind me posting the snippet of our conversation up here – nothing private was said so I hope it is fine! Let me know 🙂 )
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I understand your concerns about cakes and losing weight. But this should never become an issue. If you want to lose weight, eating cakes may not be the advice you want to get. Let’s say you eat a slice of cake. Some people are different, cakes make them gain weight. So in order to fight this you have to work out twice as hard and eat healthily in other aspects of your life. Cakes are fem. lol
hehe thankyou for your comment. that’s why cake is so evil, because it is bad for you and yet it tastes so good! most of the time i can resist it, but sometime I give in… I think that we should be able to enjoy life’s little luxuries every now and then though, so the occasional slice of cake is not a big problem 😉 like you said, as long as we live a healthy lifestyle with exercise and a balanced diet, that is the most important thing.