Cracking the Nut of Southern Cakes
Winston-Salem residents will get a treat Friday when Nancie McDermott demonstrates how to crack a coconut and decorate a fresh coconut cake.
Nancie’s appearance is part of the Let Them Eat Cake series of events that are part of the Six Days in November arts festival.
You can read my story about Let Them Eat Cake here.
Nancie McDermott makes a lot of the same classic Southern cakes that home cooks make around here. But she comes at them from the perspective of a professional cookbook author. In fact, one of her most recent books is Southern Cakes (Chronicle Books, 2007).
McDermott began her food career with Asian food, following a stint with the Peace Corps in Thailand, and seven of her nine cookbooks focus on Asian food.
“But all along I was this woman born in Burlington, raised in High Point. I spent a lot of time on my grandmother’s dairy farm in Orange County.”
So Southern Cakes is a return to McDermott’s roots. To her, Southern cakes are all about the stories. “It’s not about how to make coconut cake. It’s about being in the kitchen with my grandmother and how the cake was a part of a celebration.”
Southern cake demonstration and book-signing: 1 p.m. Nov. 20, Chelsee’s Coffee Shop and More, 533 N. Trade St. Nancie McDermott of Chapel Hill, the author of Southern Cakes (Chronicle Books, 2007), will demonstrate how to assemble a fresh coconut cake. There will be a tasting of Sybil Pressly’s buttermilk cake with old-time fudge icing, Ocracoke Island fig cake with buttermilk glaze, and Alleghany County molasses stack cake with molasses whipped cream. Admission is free. Call 703-1503 for more information.
