Years ago friends of ours stayed at my house in Callicoon Center. I had made a sour cream cake and asked Charlie if he wanted some. Apparently he was sour on that idea and he declined the offer.

The next time he and his wife visited us I had made that cake again and I asked Charlie if he'd like a piece of coffee cake and he said he loved coffee cake and even asked for seconds. To this day I've never revealed to him that he was enjoying my sour cream cake.

Recently I offered that cake at my church's Spring Fling event. My friend Rhonda had bid on it and asked if she could pick it up at my house in River Edge on October 23rd at 3 PM.

Originally I had planned to go to the country days earlier and would be back by then. My son, Michael was going with me and he had some things to take care of first so we didn't get to the country until the 22nd. He was leaving me there for a few days and then would come back to get me.

I would bake the cake in Callicoon Center and since he had to be back in Nyack by 3:30 on the 23rd he would be there to give her the cake or he might even get there earlier and if so, would leave it on the kitchen table.

I took all the ingredients that I needed to make the cake. I knew there was a mixer there and also a pan to bake it in. That's when things started to go wrong. The mixer is ancient. It's okay for mixing up eggs for an omelette but not for heavy cake batter. I tried mixing it by hand and even Michael couldn't get it combined. We did finally get it done and I found a pan to pour it into. The pan was too big and Michael convinced me to pour it into a smaller pan.

The next day I started texting Rhonda to verify the time, etc. Turns out Rhonda doesn't read texts. And when I told her over the phone that Mike might get there early, she thought I said that she should get there early so she called me at 2:15 to say she was at my house and no one was home.

Rhonda left and got something to eat and by the time she got back to the house, Mike was there. She was taking the cake to friends of hers to celebrate their birthdays and she said just by looking at it they could tell it was going to be good.

The whole episode almost made me sour on the idea of ever making that cake again but I have another pint of sour cream to use up.