Twelfth Night

It's Twelfth Night - a day in ages past when there would be great carousing with rich feasts of food and the drinking of fine wassail as people celebrated the end of the Christmas season. This is a custom that has almost died out as we usually stop celebrating Christmas after New Year's Day.

And for the past 20 years my parents would drive a very long distance to a British bakery to purchase an authentic British Christmas Cake and send it to me on Christmas Eve. My father died earlier this year and I really didn't expect the infamous cake to appear. But my sweet sister Becky drove my mother to Santa Monica to get the cake and mail it to me - just in time for Christmas.

If you've never tasted Christmas cake it's quite similar to fruit cake with a "wee" bit of alcohol thrown in. The white icing on top is hard and it covers a thin layer of marzipan. It's really rich and one piece is usually more than enough. And so I am celebrating this 12th Night by cutting into the cake (which gets better with age) and raising a toast to my dad - knowing he is with us in spirit.