My family were friends with an excellent chef. She weighed a good three hundred pounds because she made the most fabulous desserts you could imagine.
One evening we were invited to her home for dinner. Oh, we were excited! We had been to her dinner parties before and the food was five star fare.
We were seated at a long linen covered table, replete with silverware and crystal. At the head of the table was perhaps the most incredible five story high, chocolate frosted cake I ever laid eyes on. It awaited us on a silver cake stand, heavy on a white paper doily.
My whole family sat through the entire meal with our eyes riveted on that cake. We were drooling.
When at last it came time to slice into that decadence, we all requested as big of a piece as she would give us.
Watching that knife cut through at least a hundred layers of cake and frosting was dizzying.
We dove in, our forks clacked the plates.
Madame chef stood expectantly at the head of the table, arms folded, knife in hand, face beaming, waiting for the ensuing praise.
And all of us, at the same time, gagged.
That cake tasted like dog shit!
I was only maybe ten years old and I swallowed hard. Being polite and grateful guests, we chewed that leather ball and drank lots of water to get it down, all the while praising her effort. We were all quite warm and dabbing our foreheads by the time we finished our slices.
“Oh!” She delighted. “Please have some more!”
We were suddenly all quite full and refusing like mad dogs.
She explained she had made it out of sauerkraut. Which for the uninitiated, is fermented cabbage.
I still think she was trying to poison us.