Bloody (Red Velvet) Birthday Cake

My girl has gone Goth. My oldest one, anyway. She started by wearing black clothes and moping around the house in a typical teenage angst-ridden funk. She dyed her hair black, got black frames for her glasses, and, when we let her, wears black lipstick.

Fortunately, this is as far as it's gotten. She's not adopted an obsession with death or anything. She just digs the clothes.

One word of caution: don't call her an “emo.” She'll hit you.

She does, however, like vampires. She's read the Stephanie Meyers' Twilight books four or five times. She likes wolves, too. The more romanticized versions of werewolves, like those found in the book Blood and Chocolate are her favorite.

When her birthday rolled around, she wanted a Goth party. For her that meant having her friends over to watch the Blood & Chocolate movie. It was about this time that I learned about Red Velvet Cake. I showed her a picture of it and she got excited. The dark red crumb against white icing looked pretty bloody to both of us. Being the doting father that I am, I agreed to make one for her.

Trouble was, I'd never made one before. After cruising the web, and chatting with my foodie friends on Twitter, @ali_s recommended this recipe from Martha Stewart. I shouldn't be surprised. I think she works for Martha. Having said that, of all the red velvet cake recipes I looked at, this one seemed the most promising.

Now, let me confess, Martha Stewart's TV show annoys me. She just comes across as a bit “too perfect” to believe. But I'm more than willing to give the devil her due. She's one freakishly talented lady. Her recipe makes a tasty cake.

It turns out that red velvet cake is really just a devil's food cake with a vinegar and soda leavening agent. When it was invented, unprocessed cocoa was used. The unprocessed cocoa reacted with the vinegar to give the cake it's characteristic red color. Processed cocoa doesn't react that way so, these days we have to add red food coloring. A lot of red food coloring. Martha's recipe calls 1/4 cup of the stuff. No, that's not a typo. It's just a bit more than the standard 2 oz. bottle I used. The food coloring was the most expensive ingredient in the whole cake. Because of that, I don't think I'll be making it again anytime soon.

My goth girl wanted me to use black icing to decorate the cake, but I wasn't going for it. Traditionally these cakes are served with butter cream icing (yum) and I thought the off-white icing would highlight the red in the cake better, making it look bloodier than a dark icing would.

I didn't want to do the traditional “happy birthday” writing on top, either. This was a goth party. The guests were going to watch a werewolf movie, so I played along. I found a wolf's head pattern online for carving pumpkins. I printed it on cardstock, cut it out, and lightly placed it over the top of the cake. Then I dusted cocoa powder over the stencil to create a wolf's head pattern on top.

It was a simple trick, but the results were pretty cool. Best of all, my daughter loved the cake, and smiled as big a smile as I've ever seen. I even got a hefty hug out of the deal.

Oh, by the way. Don't tell her goth friends she was smiling and happy, let alone because of something her Dad did. They don't like that sort of thing.

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Deconstructing the Mormon Foodie – Part 6: Medical Discharge to Modern Day

Even though the religious persecution had mostly stopped, I don't know that I was very happy in North Carolina. I seemed to just be biding my time while driving a 3-ton flat-bed truck and moving ammo and furniture around for the base General. My life wasn't really going anywhere.

Eventually, my knee injury caught up with me. As a Marine, I was expected to maintain a certain level of physical fitness, but I couldn't run any real distance without pain. The warehouse work wasn't helping. I went to sickbay to see if there was anything that could be done. The doctor looked me square in the eye and said, “You need a longer rest than the Marine Corps can give you. I think we'll have to discharge you.”

That was a weird day, I have to admit. On the one hand, I didn't like my boring job and some of the people I worked around were still bugging me for being a “Mormon.” My prospects for promotion weren't all that great, either. There were already too many corporals working in warehouses. On the other hand, I would be out of the Marine Corps and I'd have to rebuild my life as a civilian having few skills.

In the end, I think it was a good thing that I was medically discharged. I got four years worth of tuition and educational supplies, allowing me to complete my Bachelors degree without going into a large amount of debt. I also get a small monthly stipend from the VA as well as a few other benefits. Broken knees aren't worth much, but in this economy, every little bit helps.

One thing that coming home got me was getting back into the kitchen. I started cooking more. For a while, I got involved in Macrobiotics. My Mom said, “If you want to eat that way, you'll have to cook it. I'm not going to.” That's quite a bit of incentive, if you ask me. I learned to cook a lot of vegetable dishes, and a few Japanese dishes, I wouldn't have tried, otherwise. It certainly opened my palate to more flavors and food possibilities.

It was at this time that I met My Loving Wife (MLW). Of course, she wasn't my wife then. I met her on a blind date and started courting her with spaghetti dinners.

Four years after leaving the Marine Corps, MLW and I got married in the LDS Jordan River Temple for “time and all eternity.” Mormon's believe that we can be sealed together as family units. Such special ordinances only take place inside temples. If we obey the commandments, keeping our covenants and remaining worthy, we can be together forever as husband and wife. Our children will always be our children, and we will continue to enjoy the same familial relations have in this life, in the next.

Married life provided me with amazing opportunities for cooking. MLW hates to cook. I hate yard work. She's not a big fan either, but she likes it better than cooking. If it takes more than opening a can and throwing it in the microwave, MLW balks. Even then it's “iffy.”

Our division of household duties is a little non-traditional in that regard. It certainly plays havoc with the local Relief Society. Whenever MLW is sick, the other sisters in the ward get together and bring over dinners and such for us to help out. When I'm sick, they assume that MLW has all the cooking handled. She told me once, “Why can't they do this the other way around? That's when I need the help!”

It's worked out pretty well for us, though. Four kids and 18 years later, I'm still cooking, and she's still tending the yard. Sort of. Now she gets the kids to help her and I get them in the kitchen to help me. They're becoming quite the cooks, actually. Some days, when they're washing the dishes or doing some other household chore, I turn to MLW and say, “It's nice to have slaves.”

The kids don't think I'm very funny. Maybe they're right.

In any case, the food love has just sort of blossomed from there. Recently, my Mom revealed a bunch of cookbooks and things that she got from her mother and grandmother. It's been amazing applying the cooking techniques and sensibilities I've learned over the years to these traditional family recipes. I've really enjoyed discovering my own history, and my family, through the connections of good food.

Is anyone hungry?

Deconstructing the Mormon Foodie – Part 5: Of Grievances and Garments

After being condemned to Hell, I shut the door and went to bed. The Baptists were on to me, though. They were nothing if not persistent. The Petty Officer who had accosted me before started calling to me every time he saw me, “Newman! Come here.” and then proceed to show me, in no uncertain terms, why my religion was all blasphemous dogma while his religion was pure doctrine. Mostly he quoted various scriptures in the New Testament and followed up with, “And now you see why Mormonism is wrong.” The subtext was always, “and why you're going to Hell.”

I kept my defenses polite, “Interesting. I see that scripture as saying ...” insert your favorite alternate interpretation, here. The subtext was always, “Believe it or not, I've read the Bible. Please leave me alone.”

At this point, he'd usually pause, get a puzzled look on his face, and say, “Well, I can see why you might think that,” but of course, in his eyes, I was still wrong.

One afternoon it changed, though. He called me over to his desk, in his usual fashion. Instead of regaling me with another scripture, though, he told me a joke. Not a very funny one, but hey, this was different. I think it involved toilet paper as a prop. In an odd way, through all the persistent attempts at changing me from my heathen ways, and my equally persistent refusals, we became friends.

Eventually I was released from physical therapy. After a few false starts, I was finally transferred to my new job as a warehouseman at Camp LeJeune, in North Carolina. After the transfer, food experiences became more scarce for me. The Marine Corps cooks were okay, but not a match for the Navy ones I'd left behind. Jacksonville, the surrounding town, pretty much existed only for the purpose of supporting the military base, and I never hit the restaurants outside of trips to McDonald's when I went off base, or on the way to or from church activities with the local LDS singles group. Mostly I just worked, and bided my time.

I ran into a bit more persecution in North Carolina, but it wasn't initially as overt as what I'd found in Virginia. It was a bit more troubling, though. Most of that had to do with two higher ranking woman Marine clerks. They just didn't like me. I don't know why. They just didn't think I was a very good Marine, I guess. Part of me thinks they had something to prove. They didn't have anything to prove to me. They were sergeants and I was a lance corporal. They outranked me. What was there to prove?

They weren't part of my regular chain of command, but they did work in the warehouse offices, so I had daily contact with them. One of them decided to “straighten me out,” I guess, and started a series of inspections. She announced to me, one day, that she was going to come to my barracks room and inspect my locker, so I better get it squared away.

Okay, it's not what you think. She wasn't looking for an excuse to get into my room and have her way with me or anything. I was cute, but not that cute.

What you do need to know is that she had the rank, but not the authority, to do this. I was in a difficult situation, though. I've always felt that “flying under the radar” is the best policy in the military. What brought it all to head, though, is when she found my temple garments.

LDS people who attend certain sacred temple ceremonies wear special undergarments. They are sacred to us, and there are versions of them designed and approved specifically for military personal. That way, they can be worn with the uniform. This is not only a Church approved garment, but a military approved one. When this sergeant found mine, along with the onse I wore with my civilian clothes, she came unglued. “You can't have these, Newman. Get rid of them. They're not military issue.” Never mind the fact that my civilian clothes weren't military issue, either. That wasn't in her frame of reference.

I tried to explain that these garments were approved for wearing with the uniform, and sacred to me.

She would have none of it. She either didn't believe me, or didn't care. “Get rid of them, Newman. You've got two days to replace them with regular issue boxers and t-shirts before I come back.”

I was done for. What could I do? She wasn't directly in my chain of command, but she outranked me. I couldn't just tell her off. I'd get in deeper trouble.

The next day I talked to the corporal directly above me. “Can you transfer me?” I begged. I told her that I didn't want to raise trouble for the sergeant, I just wanted this mistreatment to stop. “Can I just be transferred to S-4?”

My corporal told me not to worry. She would talk with the warrant officer in charge of the warehouse. That wasn't what I wanted, per say, but the harassment stopped. I got the most angry looks every time I walked into the warehouse office area, but I was never persecuted again.

You know, at some point, I should probably get back to talking about food.