Step No. 18 - Eat a whole McCain's Deep & Delicious Cake*

The embodiment of chocolately, velvety, desserty
freezer section eroticism.

Once again I return to memories of my large brood of siblings. The times being what they were--middle of the 1980s/early 1990s recession--my parents were often not able to purchase for us any luxury desserts. In retrospect my deep-rooted resentment for this deficit is horribly superficial and, more importantly, a very first-world problem. When we did have dessert it was usually cookies from a large bag purchased from a bulk food store, or a couple scoops of ice cream from one of those generic brand two-gallon tubs. I know, I know. Woe be unto us poor deprived children.

On the rare occasion that we did have something extra for dessert or we had company who felt obliged to bring something to contribute for the dinner, we were rewarded with a McCain "Deep & Delicious" cake. I think this was a region specific product for a long while though I've seen it appear frequently in Upper Canada. The gimmick is that you have a whole cake, even icing, in an aluminum foil box with a transparent plastic lid. You could freeze it and pull it out to defrost when company arrived. When thawed, the lucky diner experienced a flood of deliciousness from the moist chocolate cake and rich, oil-based icing. At the time I would have killed to have a bowl only of the icing. Even now the memory of it makes me shiver in delight. I swore then that someday, when I became a grownup, I would buy nothing but McCain cakes and eat them all by myself.

Fast forward low these twenty-something years and I have never actually purchased one of these cakes. I see them all the time in one of the freezer bins, but I've never felt inclined to add it to my food basket. Sure, I'll eat it if it's given to me, but for some reason one has never materialized in my own freezer. Thus, I implore you, gentle readers, to take up the challenge; assert your grownupness, purchase a McCain deep & delicious cake and indulge. Eat the whole thing and know that you've actualized one of the most coveted adolescent food desires. Any resulting gastrointestinal distress is your own fault - don't blame me.



*This step must be combined with Step No. 4 (eating dessert before dinner).

Step No. 15 - Complete a collection of matching peanut butter glasses

One of the unfortunately symptoms of being from a family of five children is that dishes never lasted too long, especially the fun ones. What, you may ask, constitutes a fun set of dishes? The once ubiquitous peanut butter glasses and the delightful series of Disney promotional glasses from McDonald's. For so many years, companies sold their peanut butter in reusable glasses as a means to bolster business. They were insanely popular and have since become popular collector's items. I mean, c'mon; just look at that image above with the intrepid, Errol Flynn face of Robin Hood. Who wouldn't want to have that gracing the water glass section of their cupboard?

I will admit that I don't recall my parents purchasing our peanut butter in these glasses, as it wouldn't even satisfactorily cover five children's toast even at one breakfast sitting. However, we did inherit a series of mismatched glasses from sundry relatives as they changed their living arrangements and downsized to more cozy quarters (read: the cemetery). In this instance there was never any fighting over who had the privilege of using the newly-emptied and freshly-washed PB glass. However, being on the receiving end of so many deceased relatives' glassware normalized the concepts of death and dying if only because we knew we'd soon have an influx of something original into the cupboards to replace all the glasses broken by a series of 'butter fingers.'

The fights among me and my siblings were over the limited number of McDonald's glassware.* Chief among them the Disney glasses sold in the early- to mid-1980s. Sure, the screen printed designs chipped after years of heavy use and the ink faded after repeated cycles in the dishwasher (I hear the cumulative gasp of kitsch collectors everywhere), but those glasses were very popular mostly because we had three glasses for five kids. Being the object of our respective affections, we inadvertently killed them with kindness and, one-by-one, they shattered like so many dreams of sipping from our golden goblets of Disney commercialism.

As is a common theme in this blog, I'm an adult now with the wherewithal to purchase not only the Disney glasses, but also peanut butter glasses; however, my adult doesn't want mismatched glassware. No, I will have one or two matching sets of these glasses. Only an adolescent would have one-offs. It takes a real grownup to possess a complete set and use them at nice dinners when you've special company showing up. One minor risk is that one's guests may also have come from very competitive households and liable to nick one of your treasures to fill with ice cold milk to accompany their PB&J sandwich at lunch. Note to self: purchase extras.

*In a sign that surely foreshadowed the development of my sexuality, I favoured the "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" glass.

Step No. 4 - Eat your dessert before vegetables

"Gosh, Ma - It's swell that you care for my health and all,
but did you have to put the broccoli in the cake?"

Part of this is purely out of spite because I'm an adult and can do this without reproach. It's clear that parents use dessert as incentive for children to finish their vegetables; the vegetables that kids don't want to eat because they were prepared so horribly by Mom, Dad, or a canned-food factory worker in Mississauga. Is there any wonder why people want to eat dessert and skip the veggies altogether? Of course not!

One of the many simple joys of adulthood is having one's dessert in the middle of the afternoon or right before dinner time. Adding coffee or tea, and the pleasure of a friend's company changes the equation. In this respect, the act of adolescent defiance is recontextualised as a defensible act of socialisation, networking, or professional congress.
In one of the strangest turns of fate, when I visit my parents I am appalled by their diet. During my last stay there I whined, "Yeah, the pudding is nice, but how about some dietary fibre? Y'know, like, vegetables?" My siblings, all of whom once abhorred the over-boiled broccoli, now demand vegetables when planning meals. As long as we've got our roughage, dessert's order in our meal plan is irrelevant. Celebrate your adolescent defiance and let your youthful conscience act in loco parentis.

Step No. 1 - People watch as a means to procrastinate and claim that you're processing ideas.

One may also substitute "people watch" for "daydream." I made a horrible habit of daydreaming whenever I was so lucky to get a window seat in middle- and high-schools and, consequently, was an annoyance to any of the teachers who bothered about such things. In grade 10, while writing an in class test for Science 10, I was fortunate enough to be seated by a window overlooking not just the school's front lawn but also the neighbourhood, which sprawled for blocks. I was roundly chastised by the teacher for "cheating," since that's the only reason I would look so preoccupied with staring out the window.

Fast forward *mumble* years and can now explain away my people watching and/or daydreaming by "processing." This is especially useful if engrossed in a conversation of some gravitas or if your conversation companion is a crashing bore. Please note: If one must daydream or people watch and claim that you're thinking about content, one must furrow one's eyebrows to a conversation appropriate intensity.