I have just ordered $150.00 worth of nuts, glace cherries, raisins, currents and candied pineapple. Yes, I admit it – I am making fruitcakes. That’s fruitcake with an s. I plan on producing about seventy pounds of fruitcakes to hand out as gifts to family, friends and total strangers. I thought I was the only one doing this until I went to Voltaire’s, our local bookstore in Key West and one of the owners told me to read a short story by Truman Capote called “A Christmas Memory”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Memory
This absolutely confirmed my decision to carry on making these things. I make the best fruitcake I have ever tasted and I love fruitcake. I’m happy, not offended by the naysayers, the bad jokes about using them as doorstoppers and other nonsense and don’t care what some people think because I know the truth. We fruitcake lovers are everywhere, some in hiding some not. Every Christmas I hand out these cakes and look for the telltale expression the tightening of lips, the blank stare of the fruitcake hater and I say – O if you don’t like fruitcake give it to someone who does – most families have one in their midst. I come from a family with a long fruitcake tradition. I think what I like most about the recipe is that is is arduous, complicated and has a high failure rate – this is the true lure of the fruitcake. it’s like growing watermelon in the north – foolish but when it works – O man does it taste good! My brother and I used to have watermelon wars – Andrew got me into it saying – “You’ll like growing it, it’s a tense fruit.” I knew what he meant by that and that’s the way I feel about most things I do. Who else would bother to write short stories – another thankless task that I enjoy – something else that Truman Capote & I have in common. Anyhow, the stuff should arrive mid-week. Can’t wait