Love and Lemon Pound Cake

I was walking through the market area in Charleston in May of 2019. As I was noticing the sweetgrass baskets, kitschy T-shirts, spice mixes, and beach treasures, I spied some bottles of extract. This was a brand that I had not often seen since childhood. There, among the many items of the market, were bottles of lemon extract. Seeing them took me back to the kitchen of my childhood home in Greensboro, North Carolina, some 45 years earlier, where that extract could be found on the spice rack.

“Hi Mom! Hi Nano! I’m home from school!” I yelled to my mother and grandmother as I opened the back door that Friday afternoon in 1975. The smell of lemon mixed with butter immediately hit my nose. Ahh, yes! There was a freshly-made pound cake that had just come out of the oven. Nano asked me whether I would like to remove it from the pan and I said, “Sure!” I turned the cake pan upside down onto the waiting rack and pushed the bottom of the two-part pan. The side of the pan slid up easily as a result of the massive amount of butter it was greased with. I then used a knife to lift the bottom part off. “Should I take off the waxed paper now, too?” I asked Nano. “Yes, of course”, she said. I peeled the paper off the cake and eagerly licked the crumbs. I could hardly wait until dessert that night to eat a piece of that moist, delicious cake with just a hint of lemon in it. That cake tasted like sunshine and love.

This was just the latest of countless pound cakes that Nano had made over the course of the previous 50 years. Her husband, Joe Usher, my grandfather (Papa), loved those cakes. So she made him one almost every week of their married life. He worked hard and long hours as the owner and head pharmacist of the Asheboro Street Drugstore and looked forward to that sweet dessert on the weekends. Sometimes she made pound cakes flavored with almond or the traditional vanilla. Other times she would use cocoa and make a chocolate pound cake. But Papa’s favorite was lemon, so that is what she made most often.

When Papa died in 1959, Nano stopped making pound cakes for a while. Then when we moved to Greensboro to live with her in 1963, she happily began making pound cakes again for her grandchildren, my brother and me.

It was April 1984, and I came into the door and began to hug Nano. “Yummy, it smells like lemon pound cake!” I exclaimed. “Yes, I knew you were coming by for a visit, so I made one especially for you.” Even though I was married and no longer living at home, I came by often because I worked in Greensboro. I told her that my husband and I would be moving to Aiken, South Carolina, at the end of the summer for his new job there. I was sad that I would not be seeing her on a regular basis anymore. She had been a literal second mother to me growing up — we had lived together since I was 5. Nano showed me her love in many tangible ways, including making pound cakes, buying me clothes, ironing my clothes, and giving lots of hugs.

One early morning in September 1989 I got a call from my mother. “Nano has passed away.” This call was not entirely unexpected, since Nano was 96 years old and had been mostly bed-ridden for the past 9 months. I cried anyway. After the funeral friends came to the house and, as at most funerals, there were all kinds of foods to eat. Someone brought a pound cake. This made me tear up a bit, because it was not Nano’s. I tried it, but it did not have the buttery taste or lemon that I remembered from hers. It was a bit dry and crumbly. But most of all it did not have Nano’s love in it.

When we walked by the market 2019 and I saw the lemon extract, I immediately thought of Nano’s pound cake. Even after 30 years I could still remember the smell and taste of it. Readers may ask whether I have the recipe for the cake and, if I do, why I don’t bake it myself. I did have the recipe, but since 2008 I have not been able to eat wheat flour due to my severe gluten sensitivity.

But it is OK. My hope and confidence rest in the Bible. “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.” (Phil 1:3 ESV) Paul said this while he was in jail. He was remembering the believers in Philippi from the church he had started there. He would never again see them on earth, but he had supreme confidence that he would see them in heaven. Just as Paul had confidence that he would see the Philippians in heaven, I have confidence that I will see Nano one day in heaven.

I believe that one day all believers will live on the New Earth. Just as Jesus ate and drank in his resurrected body for the 40 days he was on earth, I look forward to that day when I can again eat lemon pound cake with Nano.

Picture of Ginger Hudock

Ginger Hudock

Ginger Hudock’s eclectic background includes degrees in vocal performance, finance and nutrition. She worked as the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance at USC Aiken for 25 years before beginning her nutrition career. Her writing has appeared online at TheMighty.com, in addition to a monthly nutrition column for Aiken’s Bella Magazine. You can read more of Ginger’s articles about food, nutrition, faith and personal finance at her blog www.GingerHudock.com.
Picture of Ginger Hudock

Ginger Hudock

Ginger Hudock’s eclectic background includes degrees in vocal performance, finance and nutrition. She worked as the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance at USC Aiken for 25 years before beginning her nutrition career. Her writing has appeared online at TheMighty.com, in addition to a monthly nutrition column for Aiken’s Bella Magazine. You can read more of Ginger’s articles about food, nutrition, faith and personal finance at her blog www.GingerHudock.com.

In the know

Related Stories

Has Play Time Changed for your Children? | Palmetto Bella

Has Play Time Changed for your Children?

The Benefits of Interacting with Others during Play Time Your kids are probably not spending much time playing outdoors with their friends. Today’s children play outdoors half as much as their parents did. Far from being a total waste of time, play allows us to fine-tune our motor skills, develop social skills and emotional resilience, and learn our limitations; play is essential for normal, healthy brain development 1 Play Makes You Smarter, Kinder, & Braver The replacement of physical play with technological gadgetry has many experts worried, as research shows playing makes people smarter, braver, and kinder. Science is starting to uncover the intricate connections between play and the development

Read More »
Can Hormone Replacement Therapy Boost Immune Function in the Face of COVID-19? | Aiken Bella Magazine

Can Hormone Replacement Therapy Boost Immune Function in the Face of COVID-19?

We are all scrambling during this pandemic, trying to figure out how to keep ourselves healthy under the threat of COVID-19. I love searching out any new clinical research that may help us put our health in perspective and perhaps help us strengthen our bodies, not only against COVID-19 but against any other invader lurking around the corner waiting to pounce once it gets half a chance. The immune system is and should be our number one priority right now, especially with an invisible enemy on our tails. Current literature suggests that hormones may be protective of our immune system. If you are perimenopausal, menopausal, or andropausal, and on hormone

Read More »
Garden-Fresh 'Maters | Aiken Bella Magazine

Garden-Fresh ‘Maters

As a child I am not sure that I realized you could purchase fresh tomatoes in a store, because all the ones I ate were homegrown and garden-fresh. My family lived with my grandmother from the time I was six, and every year she grew the most delicious tomatoes. She did not have a huge garden, but instead, she planted tomatoes (and sometimes other vegetables) in the spaces between her beloved rosebushes. I remember that she saved our coffee grounds to amend the soil. Even though the concept of organic gardening was not well known in the 1970s, she instinctively knew that the flavor of the tomatoes would be enhanced

Read More »
Let’s Get Physical | Aiken Bella Magazine

Let’s Get Physical

Back to school also brings us back to the playing field. School sports are a tradition in my family. Almost all of us played something. My husband played baseball. I was a cheerleader. Grandpa was a wrestler and golfer. When my kids were at an appropriate age, we tried them in every conceivable sport. We wanted to see what they loved. It was important to us that they had a love for the game and felt they had a choice in the selection. We knew that if they didn’t love it at the elementary and middle school levels, chances are they’d struggle later on when competition and expectation really heat

Read More »