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spent MONTHS looking for this stupid tumblr post bcuz i constantly want to reference it and it wouldn't come up no matter what i searched despite it being (what i thought) was a popular well-known tumblr post only to find that the original blog turned off reblogs and deactivated and that it only got 12k notes total. but im posting it anyway to preserve its legacy
in which saph embarks upon making walnut cake. for christmas eve. year two. two thousand and twenty five. godspeed myself and walnuts everywhere.
hello again my fellow friends, romans and countrymen. we once again find ourselves here, a year later and quite a few dollars short, smack in the middle of the ol month of december with an impossible task upon my hands once again: make the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
“again?” you might be asking.
yes my fellow friend, roman, and/or countryman, again.
you see, last year, my great aunt, who is still very much alive in case you were wondering, told all of us that she was Done doing christmas eve and it was Up To Us now. so her two nieces (my mom and my aunt, one a non practicing catholic and the other a practicing jew) scrambled to throw together an acceptable ukrainian christmas eve. as you may have figured out, this is not a religious expedition. this is for the vibes and the lore and the family tradition but, most importantly, for the Food.
since my great aunt is actually the only one of us to have lived in ukraine, we kinda just do what she does. and over the years things have been Severely Paired Back. it’s far from the whole shebang. and if you’re about to snoot your Lore Accurate Eastern European Christmas all over my post, let me remind you that this is My family tradition and Not Yours. :)
so. what was thrown together last year was:
course 1: borscht with vushka. and also challah. unsure where the challah has come from but we’ve had it for years
course 2: fried flounder. with horseradish sauce.
course 3: pierogi. of the regular and the sauerkraut varieties. too much sour cream. (regrettably there were no holubsti. i personally was annoyed by this. and someone also forgot to make mushroom sauce. i was also annoyed about this.)
course 4: Dessert. which was a confusing array of compote (bad), various cookies (okay), several bad attempts at kutia (upsetting because it has been made in previous years By The Same People with great success) and. most importantly. the walnut cake. my walnut cake. for christmas eve.
if you are new here. I was entrusted with my great aunts walnut cake recipe when i was roughly 16. i have made it exactly three times. once i fucked up the frosting. once i fucked up the cake. and once i had a panic attack and fucked up the frosting and Nearly the cake. that was last year. we do not speak of last year.
but. if you will look at the array of food, you will see that it is not exactly the most traditional spread out there. so we needed Something. Something to ground us in at least a semblance of tradition and the notion of years past. something that would make you forget about the disappointing lack of holubsti. and mushroom sauce.
and thus. the need for walnut cake. for christmas eve.
so. my mother called me on tuesday. as mothers do. the topic of discussion?
The Christmas Eve Food.
i was already shaking at the prospect of walnut cake. for christmas eve. but i stayed quiet.
first. my mother proposed frozen pierogi from whole foods as the pierogi. which. i have had before. they are fine. but they are Not Fine for christmas eve. christmas eve is a time for watching your cousins try to eat as many dense little pierogi from the polish market as they can.
eventually she says that they will get the polish market pierogis. i consider this a win.
then she moves on to holubsti. i loudly voice my opinion that they be present. i am assured that my aunt is making them. i am thrilled with this information.
next up she debates the merit of fried flounder. fried flounder is a staple. she proposes perhaps salmon. which we did used to do. i say this would be acceptable. i do not really care about the fish since we now have holubsti.
then. the dreaded words.
“so you’re coming home on the 21st? will you have time to make the walnut cake? is that something you want to do?”
i pause. a long and very pregnant pause. pregnant with the fact that my mom had not thirty minutes earlier proposed whole foods pierogi at our christmas eve. i consider saying no. then i remember that that means no one will make the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
unfortunately. i yearn for walnut cake and also redemption.
“i can make the walnut cake,” i say.
“great!” my mother says.
then, for some unknown reason, she asks about the frosting.
“what do you put in the frosting? is it cognac? rum? what do you use?”
i am utterly taken aback because, if you remember last year, my great aunt gave me a shot of her $300 cognac to put in the frosting. i brought it home and my mom was Outraged because she’s never liked the cognac in the frosting. (a fair point). so the shot of $300 cognac sat on the kitchen sink until someone dumped it out on new years eve. because none of us drink.
that has been another improvement this year. i have ventured into bad screw top wine. unsure if this is good or bad for the walnut cake. but i digress. my terrible taste in mediocre wine has nothing to do with top shelf cognac or even walnut cake.
“well mom,” i say, because i am a stickler for setting the record straight. “last year great aunt gave me a shot of her $300 cognac and you told me not to put it in. so it sat on our sink and i think you dumped it.”
“oh.” she does not remember this at all. “well. i don’t care. we can get some of her cognac.”
fantastic. a new variable.
“okay,” i say. because what else is there to say? i am now plagued by the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
this was three days ago. i have had three nights of nightmares of walnut cake. for christmas eve. that i have to make.
perhaps i should bring some mediocre screw top wine home with me. perhaps that will help.
my dear friends, romans and fellow countrymen, as you may have noticed, christmas eve is rapidly approaching. it is so rapidly approaching in fact that there are only three days left. something that i am not at all stressed about. but this is not about the dwindling number of days left until christmas eve. this is about two days ago when there were still two more days left until christmas eve.
i was on the phone with my sister, the very same sister that i had been informed would be aiding in my making of the walnut cake. for christmas eve. which i am making tomorrow. which i will not dwell upon at this time.
and so i asked my sister, “hey, i heard you are helping me make walnut cake.”
and she said, “yes.”
and i said, “now how would you feel about getting tastefully tipsy on some very sweet, screw top. 12.99 red wine that i bought in pennsylvania at a wegmans?”
and she said, “sounds wild. i’m in.” you know, like any good sister who Also doesn’t do a whole lot of drinking.
from the background, my mother chimed in, as mothers do. “why would you buy screw top wine?”
for context. i can recall there being wine in my house exactly twice in the last ten years. the first time was because my dad somehow won a case of pretty shit red wine that we cooked with for all ten of those years because that was how long it took for us to get through it. the second time was last christmas when my mom bought Nicer Wine to cook something with. and e and my sister both tried it and went hmmmmm why as a society did we feel the need to make liquid dry?
and i said “because it’s good, mom.”
it is not good. it would send every wine critic into a tizzy. i, however, am a simpleton with no taste or desire to experience nice wine because i come from an extended family of alcoholics and have no desire to tempt the devil in this regard.
“there’s no way it’s good,” my mom said.
“well, you’re right,” i said, because she in fact was. “but i feel like that was what was missing last year. i wasn’t drinking while i made the cake, this might unlock something.”
“whatever, saph,” my mom said, still clearly judging me for my wine purchasing. i did not care in the slightest. this was my new secret weapon against the cake. the walnut cake. for christmas eve. which i kind of forgot was the point of the post in my wine tangent.
i have a Second Secret Weapon. in the quest for walnut cake. and that is my trusty jar of very strong and very homemade vanilla extract. the cake calls for a “packet of vanilla sugar,” which i have used before but tastes utterly shit. so this year, we are going for the full monty of vanilla extract and sugar and hoping that it is just what the devil ordered.
i cannot stress enough, by the way, that i am a very competent baker. i have inherited a plethora of other family recipes that i can bake with my eyes closed. this week alone i think i made roughly 400 raspberry squares, a recipe that i inherited from my grandma that i can probably bake with my eyes closed. it remains the walnut cake that stumps me. it is vexing. it is humiliating. i dread it’s arrival but i long for its eventual consumption.
twenty four hours remain until the 2025 walnut cake baking event begins. but for now i will pack my suitcase with my screw top red wine and my homemade vanilla extract, hoping that this is enough armor against the enemy that lurks in my parents cupboards.
pray for me, dear friends.
so i arrive home, armed against the torturous walnut cake, for christmas eve, with my vanilla extract and my terrible screw top red wine. i put the wine in the fridge which affronts my dad because that is “not proper red wine etiquette.” fortunately i am once again a simpleton who does not concern herself with wine etiquette and i do not listen to him. also i happen to know that putting the bad screw top wine in the fridge makes it taste better. but i digress. this is a a post about walnut cake. for christmas eve. not wine.
i ask my mother, “so do you have all the stuff for the walnut cake?”
and she says, predictably, “no we have to get it tomorrow. i need to make a list.”
oh joyous day. though i am not sure what i had expected because again this is walnut cake. for christmas eve. anything is possible. perhaps the unmade cake sensed the wine and became scared.
she consults the dreadful recipe. and she asks me: “is turbinato sugar the same as white sugar? will that work for the cake?”
and i say “no mom it is not the same and it will not work because it has to be white sugar because that’s what the recipe says.”
you might be wondering, saph, didn’t you say the recipe doesn’t work?
yes that’s true. however, i don’t think whipping egg whites with the wrong sugar is the answer. this is walnut cake. for christmas eve. we can not be fast and lose with the walnut cake. it is like a printer. it can sense fear.
then i ask about the congac.
my mom did not get the $300 shot of cognac from my great aunt. this, if you will remember, is an essential ingredient and a new variable for this year.
“do they sell small bottles of that stuff?” my mom asks, utterly lost, as one would be in a family of people who do not drink except apparently to make walnut cake.
“probably,” i say, relying on my very limited liquor store knowledge.
“well, we will have to go out and get some at the liquor store tomorrow,” my mom says.
now, friends and romans, not only have i never made walnut cake, for christmas eve, with cognac before, but i also have never been in a liquor store with my mom. i think the latter is far more terrifying than the former.
i fear that this may be a disaster. perhaps i should have bought more wine.
the morning of december 22, 2025. i rise from my childhood bed at 9:15am. i don my lucky socks, my jeans and shirt and meander downstairs where my parents are, once again, debating the proper temperature to boil water to to drink tea. my mom thinks it’s 188. my dad thinks it is 205. they ask me my opinion. i tell them, as i do every time, that in my measly apartment i have two options for hot water: boiling or not boiling. this is a debate every time i am home and every time i give the same answer. today though i am thankful for the distraction that it serves because it briefly makes me forget about the walnut cake that i am to bake. today. for christmas eve. which is in two days. the very same walnut cake that we currently have absolutely no ingredients for.
i patiently make the list and watch as the time ticks by. 10am. 10:30am. 11am. 11:30am. each hour we wait to leave for the store is another hour i do not have to bake the walnut cake. for christmas eve. i can only bake this cake today. it is very important that i bake the cake today.
“i don’t want to leave late,” my mom says, as it continues to get later. now would be a good time for me to remind everyone that i live in new jersey. my parents are from new jersey. we are all from new jersey. this makes this whole story make a lot more sense.
(in case you don’t know: people from new jersey are loud. verbose. have many opinions. much like myself. because i am from new jersey)
in her failing quest to not leave late, she calls my aunt, who is also from new jersey, to ask her if she has cognac. i am unsure why we cannot get the cognac from my great aunt. i ask my mom this. she informs me that it is because it is “old.”
now, again i remind you all that i am a simpleton with no knowledge of alcohol, something that is slowly starting to become an unexpected star of this story, but i am pretty sure that having older alcohol is acceptable because that makes it more expensive and also perhaps taste better?
and so i ask “why does that matter? don’t they like still drink alcohol from the middle ages?”
my question is ignored.
turns out though, my aunt does not have cognac. she has french brandy. she asks if these are the same thing. upon googling i discover that they are nearly the same thing, cognac though has to have grapes from specifically cognac france. french brandy is just normal french grapes. again, i am a simpleton. this means nothing to me.
it seems though like french brandy could be used instead of cognac.
despite the slight technicality of the french grapes, it is decided that we will Not use her french brandy. i am still unsure why. part of living in a new jersey household is that sometimes your questions do not get answered.
it is also now 11:45. we have still not left for the store. i grow scared of the afternoon that awaits me.
my father and i departed from home at the exact time of 11:54am. it was, of course, too late for my mom to leave to come with us because she had something to do at 1.
our first stop: my aunts house. i do not remember why we went there but we left with latkes. these latkes were very important because they were to be my special little treat for getting through the shopping day. and truly it was a Shopping Day. much like how nanny feels taking eloise around to the stores in the cult classic movie, eloise at christmastime.
our second stop was trader joe’s. a marvelous place with a horrible parking lot and cart war fare left right and unfortunately center. my dad ejected me from the car, hardly pausing from singing along to the new 5sos album, everyone’s a star, that he somehow knows all the lyrics to and i know none of, with the instructions of “get started and i’ll park and find you.”
i am a competent adult who grocery shops on my own often, as i enjoy staying alive and thus eating food. i do not, however, shop in my childhood trader joe’s often on account of the fact that i live four hours away. suffice to say, i knew where nothing was and my shaky memory from high school turned out to be entirely wrong because the pasta was where the baking stuff was. in my looping quest around the store i sampled an herbaceous cheesy puff. it was far more cheesy than herbaceous. i also overheard a lady, in a strong jersey accent because again i am in new jersey, loudly complaining that “i can’t find the mini toasts. oh you know, the mini toasts? you don’t know what i’m talkin about? we need the mini toasts. now i’m gonna havta go to whole foods. well i already had to go to whole foods but now i need to go to get the toasts.” her toast quest seemed frivolous compared to my daunting task of walnut cake. for christmas eve.
by the time my dad found me, trying to locate ice cream sandwiches, i was properly flustered and mostly thankful i had not run into anyone i went to school with.
walking out of the trader joe’s and through the parking lot of death, i saw a car with a bumper sticker of the josh hutchinson meme that said “keep your eyes on the road, babygirl.” and also one, on the same car, that said “will stop for hidden valley ranch.” i wish there was a hidden valley where i could harvest pre made and delicious walnut cake. but alas.
our next stop was whole foods. on the drive i learned that my mom can play the violin, my dad dissed several people’s christmas decorations (and rightfully so), my dad continued blasting the new 5sos cd, and also we encountered a four way stop that no one used correctly.
whole foods was exhausting as it was expensive and the highlight was me having to call my sister to get her to see what kind of chocolate bar my dad had already bought my mom for christmas because he had found a different one he also wanted to get but didn’t know if he had gotten it already. i had to bribe her with the promise of a cherry jubilation yerba mate. and in the end, my dad ended up buying my mom four chocolate bars for christmas. why four? i have no idea. i do not ask questions, i only fear the walnut cake. for christmas eve. my dad was also outraged at the price of olive oil, which was 26.99. he was correct about this.
i also saw the mini toasts trader joe’s lady had been searching for. i was again filled with jealously that her greatest obstacle of shopping was needed to find prepackaged mini toasts and not baking walnut cake. for christmas eve.
our fourth stop was kings. we did no less than two jersey slides to get there. we were there for two things: pink beans and doilies. neither of which were essential to walnut cake. and somehow, they did not have doilies. one of the workers though shaw me, in a proper tizzy, searching for the pink beans, which are somehow only availible at this store, and she said “honey, we have more beans elsewhere.” i did not care about the beans. i cared about getting home to make my walnut cake. for christmas eve. hilariously though, the beans were next to the olive oil. which was 11.99. the same olive oil as the 26.99 one at whole foods that my dad had been outraged by. he became re outraged at the prospect that he had fully overpaid at least 15 dollars for the olive oil. i paused my walnut cake induced misery to laugh at this.
our fifth stop was a liquor store. for the cognac. for the cake. the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
“why does mom even want to get cognac?” i asked my dad as we were entering. “last year she was insulted that i wanted to add it”
“i think she wants to make it legit,” my dad said.
this is shocking. my mother has never made any recipe legitly ever. this is not a problem, it is just a fact.
another fact was that the liquor store only had blackberry cognac. i was unaware such a thing existed and it certainly would not do for my cake. i knew that my luck would eventually run out. and it did. right then and there. in the liquor store.
fortunately we made a sixth stop to a second liquor store. and they had the cognac. in a shooter bottle. it was 6.39, not $300, but it would have to do. there was also, notably, only one bottle. so i absolutely cannot fuck up the walnut cake. for christmas eve. a prospect that is terrifying.
and i was terrified the entire ride home, 5sos softly serenading me as i tried to keep my composure.
at least there were latkes. latkes are good.
“saph,” you might be asking. “why haven’t you updated the walnut cake saga? you said you were making it on the 22 and it is now the 23?”
well dear friends, romans amd fellow countrymen, that is because, once again, as i predicted, it went horrifically.
it didn’t start out horrific, which is how the walnut cake, for christmas eve, gets you.
it started with me pouring a glass of shit screw top, chilled red wine for myself and my sister, cranking up muppets christmas carol, and making the cake batter. which went fine. i got no shells in the eggs and we hand chopped the walnuts and mixed everything together correctly.
i buttered my pans. i broke out a kitchen scale. i weighed out the batter to make sure it was even. i baked the cakes. and that, dear readers, was where it all went wrong.
as i have mentioned before. this is not a recipe that works. the quantities are off, and, as a result, the baking time is also off. which i did know going into this, but i was making my eggnog with my leftover yolks (something that, interestingly enough, my mother did not protest to this year, like she did last year), existing in ignorant bliss as my cakes baked.
i tested them at 30 minutes. then again five minutes later. then three more. then two more. then another three. then two. then i threw my hands in the air and said what the fuck it’s probably done?????
because! despite! the toothpick coming out clean! i was suspicious! mostly because walnut cake, for christmas eve, is made of almost entirely walnuts! no flour! if it is raw, you will not be able to tell with the toothpick test because walnuts are not an entity that can be tested for done ness wifh a mere toothpick like a mortal.
still. i removed the cakes suspiciously and moved on to the frosting. something that has, historically, never gone well.
except this year it did. somehow. i did not put in the entire shot of cognac, i did about a quarter. which may have attributed to the success. and i may have also said every prayer that i, a non practicing catholic, could remember as i was making the frosting, begging it not to split.
the horrors came after the frosting was done.
i turned to look at my cakes. cooling. perhaps unaware of their importance in life. and noticed that one of them had a blob of what looked like. raw cake.
the horror.
the walnut cake had, once again, bested me. at nearly 10pm on christmas eve eve eve.
“dad!” i yelled into the void like any reasonable child with a problem. “the cake smells fear!”
my father, notably, thought my ramblings were hogwash (incorrect), but he still volunteered to level the cakes, thus trimming them just enough to see if they were still raw.
this was already after my mom had just told me to rebake them. one does not just rebake walnut cake. for christmas eve. that means the walnut cake has won.
and, in leveling the cakes, my dad came to the conclusion that they were not in fact raw. the thing that looked uncooked was a bit of unincorporated sugar. thank god.
unfortunately though I had already grown worked up and now since we had leveled the cakes they needed to get filled and iced so that they didn’t dry out. this had not been something i had planned on doing. i thougnt i had just needed to bake the cakes and make the frosting today and then would assemble the following day. this turned out to be complete and utter wishful thinking.
i plopped one for the cakes on the cake stand (another improvement for this year) and added the jam. my hands were shaking. i had been slaving away at walnut cake for hours. and all i had to show were two perhaps slightly un done coakes and a pile of frosting.
my father, sensing my dread. volunteered to ice the cake. this was an utter relief to me. even if he insisted on doing a crumb coat (unnecessary). i was more than happy to leave him to fight the walnut cake demons while i showered and tried to remember who i was as a person before i had to make walnut cake. for christmas eve.
when i returned downstairs, the cake had been frosted and my dad had somehow managed to make it a two tone color, despite only having one container and one color of frosting. i am still baffled by this.
i gave the cake half a glance of approval before wandering away.
the following morning my dad said to me “i’ve never seen you make the walnut cake before. there’s a lot that goes into that.”
this is factually true. “yes,” i said. “you have to be nice to it. it can sense fear.”
and my friends, roman’s and fellow countrymen, i fear that the cake has sensed my fear. i fear that i will chop it open and it will be soggy. and nobody likes a soggy bottom.
exactly 2:42pm on christmas eve. t minus two hours and seventeen minutes until we are due at my great aunts house for christmas eve. where we will consume walnut cake. for christmas eve. and i fear that the cake has grown sentient.
the problem began this morning.
my fathers job for christmas eve is The Fish. he gets the fish. he fries the fish. he is in charge of the fish.
and this morning, as he does every year, he went to go get the fish.
or so he thought.
because the fish market was out of buisness.
as was the second fish market.
and whole foods, somehow, was entirely out of flounder. the fish that is necessary for christmas eve.
“we have ten pounds coming in tomorrow” the fish guy at whole foods told my father. “if you want it be here at 8am.”
my dad did not want flounder at 8am on christmas day. he wanted flounder on christmas eve. something that was becoming more and more unlikely.
fortunately though! he remembered that kings exists! and lo and behold! trusty kings had the founder!
take that, walnut cake. you cannot ruin our christmas eve with your evil powers.
but then! we were at my aunts house. she is in charge of picking up the pierogis. from the polish market.
the polish market is a terrifying place. i have been once. it was more stressful than the ap statistics exam i took in 2019.
there are four different lines. they all mean different things. you can’t get in the wrong line. so when you get there to pick up your christmas eve order you need to first get into the correct line and second Have Your Ticket. on your ticket is your number. and on your ticket is a time. your order pickup time. you must be exactly on time. otherwise you will not get your order. and you must have your ticket. otherwise you will not get your order. and you will also piss off the polish people working in the polish market. you do not want to do this because you want to continue to be allowed to order from the polish market.
my aunt tells us that the last time she was there there was a help wanted sign in the window. “i hope they still have people who know how to make pierogi” she said to us.
i sent evil and conniving thoughts to my walnut cake. perhaps the addition of cognac has made it sentient. i am fearful of this cake. i look forward to cutting it open tonight because hopefully it will no longer be able to cause problems. at this rate, we will somehow be deprived of borscht.
also. no one can tell me if there is going to be mushroom sauce.
5:30pm.
i sit in my dads car. to my right, my dog. to my left, my sister. in my lap, the walnut cake.
christmas eve dinner is imminent.
we have arrived.
the dastardly walnut cake, for christmas eve, is sitting on the counter, overseeing the operations.
i quiver in fear.
after a lovely dinner filled with borscht (good), fried flounder (which we had despite the walnut cakes best efforts), horseradish sauce (very spicy and very good), pierogi (well made, again despite the walnut cakes best efforts to curse us), holubusti (fantastic), and!!! mushroom sauce!!!!!!! (the star of the show). it is now time for dessert.
my walnut cake has been unwrapped, in all it’s very confusing, two tone glory. and it awaits cutting, which i am in charge of. i am thrilled about this because i wish to kill the evil spirit within it.
It Is Time
i cut the cake. going out of my way to stab it from the heart to kill the demon perhaps lurking inside the cake. the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
my family all take cake. they are unaware of the evil spirit lurking in the cake as they consume it.
i await with baited breath.
“it’s excellent,” my great aunt says.
“dude, did you make this, this is so good,” my cousin says.
“you made this cake!!??” my uncle says. “it’s fantastic!”
i breathe a sigh of relief. i take a bite of the cake. sure enough, it is walnut cake, for christmas eve. it does not taste soggy. the frosting is balanced. it is suspiciously two toned, but that does not affect the flavor. it is good. i am pleased.
but does the cake being good make up for the torture fest that it put me though?
no. absolutely not.
the walnut cake holds power. power that i am fearful of. still, i am side eyeing the remains of the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
already, i am dreading the prospect of next year.
merry christmas everyone. i hope you never have to make walnut cake. for christmas eve.
FIN
nosferatu? no. tuferatu. no es mi problema.
in which saph embarks upon making walnut cake. for christmas eve. year two. two thousand and twenty five. godspeed myself and walnuts everywhere.
hello again my fellow friends, romans and countrymen. we once again find ourselves here, a year later and quite a few dollars short, smack in the middle of the ol month of december with an impossible task upon my hands once again: make the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
“again?” you might be asking.
yes my fellow friend, roman, and/or countryman, again.
you see, last year, my great aunt, who is still very much alive in case you were wondering, told all of us that she was Done doing christmas eve and it was Up To Us now. so her two nieces (my mom and my aunt, one a non practicing catholic and the other a practicing jew) scrambled to throw together an acceptable ukrainian christmas eve. as you may have figured out, this is not a religious expedition. this is for the vibes and the lore and the family tradition but, most importantly, for the Food.
since my great aunt is actually the only one of us to have lived in ukraine, we kinda just do what she does. and over the years things have been Severely Paired Back. it’s far from the whole shebang. and if you’re about to snoot your Lore Accurate Eastern European Christmas all over my post, let me remind you that this is My family tradition and Not Yours. :)
so. what was thrown together last year was:
course 1: borscht with vushka. and also challah. unsure where the challah has come from but we’ve had it for years
course 2: fried flounder. with horseradish sauce.
course 3: pierogi. of the regular and the sauerkraut varieties. too much sour cream. (regrettably there were no holubsti. i personally was annoyed by this. and someone also forgot to make mushroom sauce. i was also annoyed about this.)
course 4: Dessert. which was a confusing array of compote (bad), various cookies (okay), several bad attempts at kutia (upsetting because it has been made in previous years By The Same People with great success) and. most importantly. the walnut cake. my walnut cake. for christmas eve.
if you are new here. I was entrusted with my great aunts walnut cake recipe when i was roughly 16. i have made it exactly three times. once i fucked up the frosting. once i fucked up the cake. and once i had a panic attack and fucked up the frosting and Nearly the cake. that was last year. we do not speak of last year.
but. if you will look at the array of food, you will see that it is not exactly the most traditional spread out there. so we needed Something. Something to ground us in at least a semblance of tradition and the notion of years past. something that would make you forget about the disappointing lack of holubsti. and mushroom sauce.
and thus. the need for walnut cake. for christmas eve.
so. my mother called me on tuesday. as mothers do. the topic of discussion?
The Christmas Eve Food.
i was already shaking at the prospect of walnut cake. for christmas eve. but i stayed quiet.
first. my mother proposed frozen pierogi from whole foods as the pierogi. which. i have had before. they are fine. but they are Not Fine for christmas eve. christmas eve is a time for watching your cousins try to eat as many dense little pierogi from the polish market as they can.
eventually she says that they will get the polish market pierogis. i consider this a win.
then she moves on to holubsti. i loudly voice my opinion that they be present. i am assured that my aunt is making them. i am thrilled with this information.
next up she debates the merit of fried flounder. fried flounder is a staple. she proposes perhaps salmon. which we did used to do. i say this would be acceptable. i do not really care about the fish since we now have holubsti.
then. the dreaded words.
“so you’re coming home on the 21st? will you have time to make the walnut cake? is that something you want to do?”
i pause. a long and very pregnant pause. pregnant with the fact that my mom had not thirty minutes earlier proposed whole foods pierogi at our christmas eve. i consider saying no. then i remember that that means no one will make the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
unfortunately. i yearn for walnut cake and also redemption.
“i can make the walnut cake,” i say.
“great!” my mother says.
then, for some unknown reason, she asks about the frosting.
“what do you put in the frosting? is it cognac? rum? what do you use?”
i am utterly taken aback because, if you remember last year, my great aunt gave me a shot of her $300 cognac to put in the frosting. i brought it home and my mom was Outraged because she’s never liked the cognac in the frosting. (a fair point). so the shot of $300 cognac sat on the kitchen sink until someone dumped it out on new years eve. because none of us drink.
that has been another improvement this year. i have ventured into bad screw top wine. unsure if this is good or bad for the walnut cake. but i digress. my terrible taste in mediocre wine has nothing to do with top shelf cognac or even walnut cake.
“well mom,” i say, because i am a stickler for setting the record straight. “last year great aunt gave me a shot of her $300 cognac and you told me not to put it in. so it sat on our sink and i think you dumped it.”
“oh.” she does not remember this at all. “well. i don’t care. we can get some of her cognac.”
fantastic. a new variable.
“okay,” i say. because what else is there to say? i am now plagued by the walnut cake. for christmas eve.
this was three days ago. i have had three nights of nightmares of walnut cake. for christmas eve. that i have to make.
perhaps i should bring some mediocre screw top wine home with me. perhaps that will help.
my dear friends, romans and fellow countrymen, as you may have noticed, christmas eve is rapidly approaching. it is so rapidly approaching in fact that there are only three days left. something that i am not at all stressed about. but this is not about the dwindling number of days left until christmas eve. this is about two days ago when there were still two more days left until christmas eve.
i was on the phone with my sister, the very same sister that i had been informed would be aiding in my making of the walnut cake. for christmas eve. which i am making tomorrow. which i will not dwell upon at this time.
and so i asked my sister, “hey, i heard you are helping me make walnut cake.”
and she said, “yes.”
and i said, “now how would you feel about getting tastefully tipsy on some very sweet, screw top. 12.99 red wine that i bought in pennsylvania at a wegmans?”
and she said, “sounds wild. i’m in.” you know, like any good sister who Also doesn’t do a whole lot of drinking.
from the background, my mother chimed in, as mothers do. “why would you buy screw top wine?”
for context. i can recall there being wine in my house exactly twice in the last ten years. the first time was because my dad somehow won a case of pretty shit red wine that we cooked with for all ten of those years because that was how long it took for us to get through it. the second time was last christmas when my mom bought Nicer Wine to cook something with. and e and my sister both tried it and went hmmmmm why as a society did we feel the need to make liquid dry?
and i said “because it’s good, mom.”
it is not good. it would send every wine critic into a tizzy. i, however, am a simpleton with no taste or desire to experience nice wine because i come from an extended family of alcoholics and have no desire to tempt the devil in this regard.
“there’s no way it’s good,” my mom said.
“well, you’re right,” i said, because she in fact was. “but i feel like that was what was missing last year. i wasn’t drinking while i made the cake, this might unlock something.”
“whatever, saph,” my mom said, still clearly judging me for my wine purchasing. i did not care in the slightest. this was my new secret weapon against the cake. the walnut cake. for christmas eve. which i kind of forgot was the point of the post in my wine tangent.
i have a Second Secret Weapon. in the quest for walnut cake. and that is my trusty jar of very strong and very homemade vanilla extract. the cake calls for a “packet of vanilla sugar,” which i have used before but tastes utterly shit. so this year, we are going for the full monty of vanilla extract and sugar and hoping that it is just what the devil ordered.
i cannot stress enough, by the way, that i am a very competent baker. i have inherited a plethora of other family recipes that i can bake with my eyes closed. this week alone i think i made roughly 400 raspberry squares, a recipe that i inherited from my grandma that i can probably bake with my eyes closed. it remains the walnut cake that stumps me. it is vexing. it is humiliating. i dread it’s arrival but i long for its eventual consumption.
twenty four hours remain until the 2025 walnut cake baking event begins. but for now i will pack my suitcase with my screw top red wine and my homemade vanilla extract, hoping that this is enough armor against the enemy that lurks in my parents cupboards.
pray for me, dear friends.
so i arrive home, armed against the torturous walnut cake, for christmas eve, with my vanilla extract and my terrible screw top red wine. i put the wine in the fridge which affronts my dad because that is “not proper red wine etiquette.” fortunately i am once again a simpleton who does not concern herself with wine etiquette and i do not listen to him. also i happen to know that putting the bad screw top wine in the fridge makes it taste better. but i digress. this is a a post about walnut cake. for christmas eve. not wine.
i ask my mother, “so do you have all the stuff for the walnut cake?”
and she says, predictably, “no we have to get it tomorrow. i need to make a list.”
oh joyous day. though i am not sure what i had expected because again this is walnut cake. for christmas eve. anything is possible. perhaps the unmade cake sensed the wine and became scared.
she consults the dreadful recipe. and she asks me: “is turbibado sugar the same as white sugar? will that work for the cake?”
and i say “no mom it is not the same and it will not work because it has to be white sugar because that’s what the recipe says.”
you might be wondering, saph, didn’t you say the recipe doesn’t work?
yes that’s true. however, i don’t think whipping egg whites with the wrong sugar is the answer. this is walnut cake. for christmas eve. we can not be fast and lose with the walnut cake. it is like a printer. it can sense fear.
then i ask about the congac.
my mom did not get the $300 shot of cognac from my great aunt. this, if you will remember, is an essential ingredient and a new variable for this year.
“do they sell small bottles of that stuff?” my mom asks, utterly lost, as one would be in a family of people who do not drink except apparently to make walnut cake.
“probably,” i say, relying on my very limited liquor store knowledge.
“well, we will have to go out and get some at the liquor store tomorrow,” my mom says.
now, friends and romans, not only have i never made walnut cake, for christmas eve, with cognac before, but i also have never been in a liquor store with my mom. i think the latter is far more terrifying than the former.
i fear that this may be a disaster. perhaps i should have bought more wine.
going here would fix me actually
[staggering to my feet and wiping a single perfect drip of blood from my mouth] i have to get back on my bullshit. no matter the cost
this is fred, the dot.
fred wants to grow into a beautiful tree, but sadly has no branches
reblog to give fred a branch
i will post fred status updates as he grows
look at him go!
he's figuring out how to tree!
35 reblogs, he's growing so good :D
75 reblogs, fred continues to grow
reminder to spread out your branches (ie. dont spam reblogs on one post), he's starting to get a little crowded near the trunk :(
At 1788 Reblogs, Fred is spreading nicely... But We Can Do Better :)
I would like to see the Fred again please
Oh, ✨Fred!✨
🤩
This is Fred the post. Please help Fred the Post grow more. We love Fred the Post.
This is Fred the post.
Please help Fred the Post grow more.
We love Fred the Post.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
If your life is horrible and you need a new source of meaning and direction.... Do NOT find religion. Learn to identify plants.
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.
ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website
REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE
Pssst! Fellow brainstormer/adhd mutuals... get over here! @krow-of-the-void @the-new-kiddo-on-the-block
i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.
Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.
this is GENUINELY one of the best character development sheets I've ever seen. Cuts right to the core of what you and your readers will glom onto, doesn't waste time on details that don't directly affect the narrative. Stupendous. Effervescent. Finally, some good fucking food
Snowball in Hell, acrylics, 30cmx20cm
I used a random piece of wire to paint the smallest details..!
Once again I´m thinking of Snowball in Hell, one of my favourite paintings ever
25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025
Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality
Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway
Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups
Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay
Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward
Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient
Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative
Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!
Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community
DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!
Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?
Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.
Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability
Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough
Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing
Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work
Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market
Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question
Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them
Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area
Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...
Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable
Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact
Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive
Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people
I liked this post so much I'm making it into a series of zines.
(Just noticed the typo on page 6 as I uploaded this, fml)
I liked this post so
much I’m making it into
a series of zines.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
Memento Mori
something ive noticed after being a hobby cosplayer for years is that in a lot of places the general consensus seems to be that wearing costumes in public is weird and/or socially unacceptable, but whenever I'm in costume in public while on the train to the con venue or having a photoshoot on location or something, people by and large fucking love my costume. they think it's so cool. kids think my costume rocks. their parents are impressed that I made it myself. random grandmas tell me my armor kicks ass. I was at a japanese garden once and barely got around to doing the photoshoot me and my homies came there to do because swathes of visitors who had never heard the word cosplay before were lining up to take a picture with me.
it's the same thing with adjacent hobbies like larp or reenactment or fursuiting, the general image of the hobby is that you're weird nerds (and probably also sex perverts) for playing dressup despite not being a child but when you're actually in costume the response from random normies is categorically positive. I inevitably get weird looks from the kind of people who think having a tattoo is an affront to god but they give me that look for just existing with blue hair and pronouns too and the people who actually talk to me always do because they wanted to tell me they love my costume. and the response that always gets me the most is when they say it looks fun but they would never dare to do the same. it's such a shame. why did wearing a silly little costume have to become an act of bravery.
A couple of years ago, a bunch of Star Wars costumers went to a state park and met for a photo shoot. The organizer notified the park staff that we were coming only to take still pictures, no video, no commercial use items. We gathered together and lugged our stuff into a fairly low traffic location, set up a portable changing tent for those who needed it and got dressed.
Our scout troopers and Jedi and Sith posed against the rock crags and forests and in dappled sunlight. We got great pictures.
And every once in a while someone would come around the bend and find something TRULY unexpected.
Most people scrambled backwards or ducked behind the nearest tree, apparently thinking they'd stumbled into a film shoot of some kind. A few took pictures from a distance.
Once we explained, all of them were delighted. How strange. How wonderous. Two little boys took pictures with every single costumer, a woman sat on a rock and just watched, one guy called home to FaceTime his brother.
The world is mundane and predictable and painful sometimes. And breaks to that are magic. Little bursts of a world turned on its head. In the best way.
ok half way through legends & lattes and it's such a cozy read??? just wanna curl in a cozy blanket and sip the rest like a steaming cup of bean water
finished it last night and it was a freakin breath of fresh air as I make my way through epic fantasies. A perfect place of respite.
if anyone has any other cozy fantasy recs hit me up
They say Tress of The Emerald Sea by Brando Sando counts as one, and i felt it kinda like that too. Also many recommends:
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett.
Travis Baldree’s prequel to L&L, Bookshops and Bonedust. 
Half a Soul by Olivia Atwarter
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell
This is some I heard are nice and want to get to sometimes, but haven’t read any of it myself. Only Tress.
Bookshops and Bonedust actually just became available on my Libby (I had it on hold for a while) so I'll absolutely dig into that asap. I'll def try to give Tress another try and I'll add the rest to my TBR!
Tho I would also recommend @/ashen-crest's books if you also want a rec, timi! (I have a physical of The Stray Spirit by them so I've been eying that for a while and will def start it soon but I've heard so much praise for it as a cost fantasy!)
THE TIME HAS COME TO RECOMMEND MY FRIENDS' BOOKS
(I mean, like, yeah, I've got my own books, too)
🌿 The Stray Spirit: higher-stakes cozy fantasy about a bard with a forest spirit trapped in his lute. Regency vibes, M/F exes to lovers, forest spirit magic.
💜 A Rival Most Vial: rival potioneers must work together on a joint commission. M/M rivals to lovers, DnD NPC vibes, big emphasis on found family. (also has an audiobook!)
but, more importantly, I have friends who write cozy fantasy as well!
I'm definitely going to miss people/books in this list, but here goes, off the top of my head:
💖 Queer Historical Cozy Fantasy Romance
Breeze Spells & Bridegrooms by S.O. Callahan and Sarah Wallace (M/M Regency w/ fae; absolutely adorable)
Oak King Holly King by Sebastian Nothwell (M/M Victorian, partially set in the fae world; please note, this one is darker, but I still believe it's cozy)
(S.O. Callahan and Sarah Wallace also write their own separate series, I recommend checking out those as well! Sebastian also writes a mix of M/M and F/F, all historical.)
🌟 Contemporary Queer Cozy Fantasy
Phantom & Rook by Noah Hawthorne (an immortal and a witch meet for the second time- but the witch doesn't remember; M/M)
Kit and Basie by Tess Carletta (an immortal falls in love with the man buying his house; M/M)
Coffee Milk and Spider Silk by Coyote M Edwards (drider opens a cafe; non-romance)
⚔️ Cozy High Fantasy
Drinks & Sinkholes by S. Usher Evans - tavern worker solves problems & mysteries in her little town of Pigsend (series, non-romance)
Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault - cozy fantasy mixed with DnD questing, with focus on platonic bonds (series)
I know a lot of this leans toward M/M romance- please pile on if you have non-romance, F/F, or nonbinary recs, or just anything else you'd like to recommend!
Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
Hey. Hey. Tumblr. Ides of March ppl. We can do this
Hell yeah moon holiday
Ooh coming up we should celebrate
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
HAPPY MOON DAY EVERYONE
