The Magic of Pound Cake and Carrying Home Wherever We Go

Last week we started the 26-hour drive back to Colorado from SC where we’d spent the previous week staying with my parents, visiting kin, and looking for a home. Both David and I have strong roots in the Upstate area: vivid memories of church, school, sports, friends, and family can be found down nearly every road, especially the unpaved ones. Even though David and I grew up just several miles apart and attended the same high school, we’ve only known each other as adults and so it’s fun to hear his memories of the same places and events and see how they compare to my own. Before we pulled out of my parents’ driveway Sunday morning before daylight, Mama put several slices of her fresh pound cake into a Tupperware container for us to enjoy on our long drive. Usually I budget my carbohydrate intake pretty rigidly because I know my body clings to any extra carbs like Ebenezer Scrooge hoarded his gold coins and carefully stores them on parts of my body that need no extra padding. For Mama’s pound cake, however, I make an exception.

I lasted about an hour before I started rooting around in my bag for that container of cake. As soon as I opened it, the smell of butter, sugar, and hint of lemon filled the car and transported me to my grandmother’s kitchen, ground zero of this recipe’s origin. Her pound cake, which we all referred to as plain cake (I assure you, it was anything but plain!) helped us to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or Sunday dinners. It punctuated the end of meals or started our days as breakfast. Mama has always sworn that her pound cakes, made following her mother’s recipe to the letter, just don’t taste as good. I don’t often say my mama is wrong, but this is one time when I must. Her pound cakes have been a part of my family history longer than I have, and they, like my grandmother’s version, are dense, soft, and just sweet enough. They perfectly accommodate some fresh strawberries and ice cream, but my favorite way to enjoy a slice is straight from the cake and into my mouth. What I never realized before, and what struck me with a wave of nostalgia and belonging as I broke off and ate a bite, were the love and warmth that are unwritten ingredients of Mama’s pound cake recipe and that no other version of this cake, no matter if it were baked by a graduate of the French Culinary School, could replicate.

On our long drives back and forth across the country, David and I often share favorite memories of growing up in rural Spartanburg county, and almost always these conversations include meals with our families and stories that break our hearts as well as those that make us laugh until we cry. We agree that our generation might be the last one to know what it’s like to come home from church on Sunday and sit down to a family meal prepared from scratch by our mamas and enjoy it without the intrusion of a blaring television or the distraction of dinging smartphones. As with so many things, I failed to understand at the time just how dear those mealtimes were. A pot of pinto beans and a cast iron skillet of cornbread, maybe supplemented by fried potatoes and some cut up spring onion, was heaven.

When we get older and move into the world with the families we choose and create for ourselves, it’s the foundation of our first families that guides what we value and prioritize. If we’re very fortunate, we find partners who make us feel like home, wherever life takes us. “Home” is unconditional love; it is where we can go on our best days and especially on our worst and be met with open arms. “Home” is where love infuses everything: the way our socks are folded, our lunches are packed, and embraces that communicate volumes with no words at all. “Home” sees our flaws and encourages us to be our best, even while claiming us exactly as we are.

Last Sunday morning, slowly savoring a piece of Mama’s homemade pound cake, tasting years of sweet memories and fresh butter, looking over at the person responsible for so many priceless memories already and with whom I anticipate a lifetime more, I felt luckier than anyone has a right to be. For all that the world tells us defines success and accomplishment, whether it is wealth or status, even Warren Buffett’s financial portfolio can’t touch the riches I carried with me in that small vehicle and in my full heart.