Chocolate cake makes people smile.

Well, a good old fashioned chocolate fudge cake will do that to you. You can tell from the candles that this one was a birthday cake–my mom’s birthday–and you can tell from the picture that we decimated about half of a pretty big cake. I made the cake.

There’s actually a fun story about what happened to the rest of the cake: my sister-in-law finished it over the course of several days in her usual manner: fork-full by fork-full, her entire upper body in the fridge. And yes, she left her fork in the box between sessions. I always find that a huge compliment: the cake was too good to bother taking the time to slice it and put it on a plate. Who needs all that ceremony? Just dive in!

I made the same cake for a friend’s 50th birthday party a couple of years ago. He threw himself a huge party, and I did not know most of the people there. The waiter he’d hired for the night assessed the crowd and sniffed, “These people won’t eat much of it.” (I wasn’t insulted. I looked at the crowd and thought the same thing. Lots of tight shirts.) Turns out we were both wrong. The cake evaporated. One guest, on finding out I’d baked the cake proposed marriage. Sort of. (He was already married.)

I don’t want you to think I’m boasting. The cake is good, yes, but that’s not what I’m all about. I’m more about what the cake (or any, uh, “celebratory pastry”) stands for. It says, “I love you. You are worth celebrating.” Isn’t that what everybody wants to hear as the years tick by?