The Newtown Pentacle

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It’s National Crunchy Taco Day, in these United States.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One has two surviving memories from early childhood. The first involves being imprisoned in a playpen while my mother vacuumed the garishly colored (typical of the early 1970’s) carpet of my parent’s bedroom, and I must have been two or three years old. The other is sitting on my grandfather’s lap at the conclusion of a family dinner during the Nixon administration, an era when the family meal typically concluded with coffee and cake. I remember Grandpa grabbing my little kid hand, which was grasping a cookie, and then helping me dip it into his black coffee.

To this day, I’m still a black coffee guy.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The aforementioned cookie wasn’t oatmeal raisin, instead it was something which members of my family refer to as an “Ida Cookie.” My Dad’s oldest sister, and the de facto matriarch of clan Waxman, was named Ida and she was a well practiced baker. Aunt Ida would routinely show up at everyone’s house with pounds and pounds of baked goods. Nearly everything she baked was designed to be quaffed with hot caffeinated beverages, and for one reason or another, if she had overlooked something to the point of it nearly becoming charcoal, we would all fight over possession of that particular cookie. “Char” was big with the family.

Ida also made amazing apple cakes, pies, and especially variants on the cookies. The most highly prized item she offered was something called a “raisin rock,” which was often shattered by knives rather than sliced.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Our Lady of the Pentacle has been sharpening her baking skills in recent years. It started out when one of her advertising clients, a nationally known brand, required the production of example foodstuffs for marketing purposes but had no budget for doing it “the right way,” which in advertising speak means hiring a chef and a food stylist. Accordingly, Our Lady built up her skill set and began manufacturing items such as the spread seen above. I’d occasionally wave the camera around at her creations, although she did most of the photography, and we puchased a few low end umbrella lights to augment the process.


“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Written by Mitch Waxman

March 21, 2017 at 11:00 am

One Response

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  1. Nice and yummy looking. Now, does the Lady bake apple pie? Cheese and chocolate cakes? Fruit tarts? My favorites.

    georgetheatheist . . . Let them eat cake.

    March 21, 2017 at 11:11 am


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