Erin Martin

Professor Lacey

Composition 111

15 September 2019

Unforgettable Moment

All families have their own traditional foods during certain times of the year. For mine,

it’s around December, the month of Christmas, where all of our family members come together,

and our famous homemade German pound cake dish is made by my grandmother. This dessert is

meaningful to my family

December isn’t just the 12 months out of the calendar year for my family. It’s the month

where most families are preparing and leading up to Christmas day. Christmas is a time were our

families along with others come together and gather to celebrate this wonderful holiday. The first

Saturday in December is where my mom side of the family comes together to decorate my house

for Christmas. It has been a tradition ever since I could remember.

Everyone in my family takes a different preservative of the whole day. Just by walking in

you can you feel the warmth of excitement throughout the house. The most important part of this

whole day is my grandmother homemade German pound cake. It is secretive that only my

grandmother has the recipe. It is not a normal store brought or out of the box pound cake.

While growing my grandmother always taught me how to bake from a homemade meal

to a dessert. Each year I learn a little sometime more that she has taught me that comes with age.

I was extremely mortified that she hasn’t taught me how to make this dessert yet. My

grandmother knew how trilled I was to learn this recipe but, yet she told me, “Erin it just isn’t

time yet”. Believe me, I begged and asked repeated when will I be able to learn this recipe. After
many years has passed with struggling and almost giving up on wanting to learn this dessert. The

first Saturday of December has come.

The day has finally come and its December 1 of 2019 around 8am, everyone starts

coming over for big day full of events. Every year this day gets out of hand with our large

family. Sometimes I feel like it’s an obstreperous with everything happening. With that being

said, everyone has their role, the guys are normally putting all the lights and decorating the

outside of the house. While the ladies are in the kitchen along with my grandma baking

preparing and baking the delicious types of foods for the day. All my cousins along with my

brother are decorating the lush green nearly 7 feet with branches that fill out the entire tree in the

living room. I have to tell my cousins all the time, “to be careful with handling the bulbs because

they can break easy”. They are digging through the four not appealing large grey bins trying to

find the bulbs they want to put up.

Meanwhile, the kitchen is filled with everyone trying to snack before the big meal. The

countertops are filled with the side dishes, the homemade bread and meals that are being cooked,

smelling the house up. You hear my aunt saying, “get out of the kitchen, you can wait until

dinner” because everyone eager to devour a great meal. Along with they have a deadline to due

to the fact we eat dinner thirty minutes after five o’clock. Later in the afternoon, around one, I

hear my grandmother call my name, “Erin, I need your help with something in the kitchen”. I am

thinking to myself, “what does she need my help with, when the whole kitchen is filled with

help?”

That was the moment, when it was just me and my grandmother standing in the kitchen. I

finally realized its time. I was thinking so many thoughts at once, my face said it all, in how I

was feeling. She took out the old discolored nearly ripped in the corner recipe. At the top, it said
German pound cake in all caps. The recipe was all typed out in one of them old fashion type

writers. She explained to me, how her Oma taught her this around your age and that’s why I

waited for this special moment with you. She went on describing all the memories this one

family recipe has. I was even more blown away in actually knowing how much this meant to my

grandmother. She went step by step with what the recipe said, even though she knows it by the

back of her hand. She went slow with me, so I could learn and watch her every step with every

ingredient that went into it.

As time flew by, it was time to start setting up for dinner. Everyone was putting the

condiments on the table along with getting the cold foods out of the refrigerator. My grandma

and I were putting all the desserts that were made, on the dessert table. I was so timid to hurry up

and dig into the cake. As my aunt was making sure everything was nearly prefect before we

started gathering our plates. My mouth watering as I waited for first piece of the German pound

cake that I had made with my grandmother. I was enjoying myself with the rest of the family, but

I just couldn’t wait for this moment. The adults finished up every meal making sure everything

else was finally done. While everyone was preparing their plates and picking which foods, they

wanted on their first round. Before heading for round two and three. I rapidly headed straight to

the dessert table, where I cut the fresh thin slice of pound cake.

End of the long, fun filled day spent with family has finally came to the end. I truly felt

this Family Christmas decorating day tradition was changed. By my grandmother showing and

being patience with teaching me how to make the famous German pound cake, I felt touched. Its

knowing that, with all her grandkids, she picked me to keep this a recipe a secret along with

carrying it on within the family.